





m 












LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

i^ -©iJMn^ '^n. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



CLOVER-LEAVES 



A Collection of Poems 



BY y 

ELLA M. BAKER 



COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY 

K. G. B. 




BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 



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Copyright, 1885, by 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

In Memoriam ix 

Memoir xi 

EARLIER POEMS. 

Jack Frost's Stocking i 

A-Strawberrying 2 

How the Violets came for my Pet ... 4 

Two Wreaths 5 

Somebody's Knocking 7 

Over and Over 8 

A Heart toward God 9 

The Two Guests 11 

Going a-Picnicing 13 

POEMS OF NATURE. 

Prudence 19 

A Song of the Nest 20 

Pussy Willow 22 

Once in a Year the May-Flowers blow . , 23 

To Let 24 

A Bunch of Violets 25 

Scruples 26 

Across Lots 28 

A Career 30 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



Page 



Daisies blowing in the Wind 32 



Out of Fashion .... 

Cobwebs 

Up in A Dandelion Ball 
Music between the Acts . 
Gold and Gray .... 
The Last of Summer . 
A Butterfly in Bowdoin Square 
As Swallows fly .... 
Autumn Color .... 
Unconscious Ministry . 
The Sunday Snow-Storm 



33 
35 
37 
39 
41 
42 

44 
45 
46 

47 
49 



IJV MEMORIAM. 

The Thought of IIer . 51 

E. M. C 54 

The Cry of the Human 56 

A Milestone 58 

Why stand Ye gazing? 60 

He giveth Sleep 61 

S. N. B 62 

The Requiem Bells 63 



RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

The Master's Work-Women 
The Tie that binds .... 
Jesus, my Sun, my Life, My Light 
Strait and Narrow .... 
Bells of Christmas Morning 

Two Toilers 

Bartimeus 

The Hidden Comforter . 

It doth not yet appear 

The Besetting Sin .... 



65 

70 

73 
74 

n 

79 

82 
84 
86 



CONTENTS, V 

Page 

The King's Garden 92 

Not as th^ World givetii 93 

A Testimony 97 

Gone to grow up in Heaven .... 99 

Heartsease 100 

Out in the Rain 102 

And stood at His Feet 103 

Sore Afraid 105 

The Sower's Calling 107 

Easter Morning 109 

What I do no 

Something to do for the King . . . . m 

Lilies on th^ Lord's Table 113 

The News of Christmas 113 

Bought with a Price 115 

Pale Gold 116 

Expecting 118 

A Cry 119 

Ownership 120 

Lighting her Candle 122 

Christ's Peace 123 

On the Way to Church 124 

A Christmas Dream 125 

Kept waiting 129 

Joy will find you where you are .... 131 

Trust 132 

The Quieting ... 134 

I shall arise 136 

Kindred 137 

Yet SHALT Thou be 139 

The Copy 140 

Requital 142 

Not my Will 143 

Son, Thou art ever with Me .... 144 



Only Footsore 



145 



A Child's Face 146 



VI CONTENTS. 

Page 

The Keepers of the King's Birthday . . . 147 

A Lily in Lent 148 

Star of Bethlehem 149 

Tired 150 

Ejaculation 151 

They wait the Easter Tide 151 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Stay-at-Homes 155 

Smiling to Herself 158 

Love is no Courtier 159 

Embroidery 161 

This Side 163 

A Little Child in Heaven 164 

At Night 165 

Many Flocks, One Fold 166 

The Reason 168 

Economy 169 

To Wake and Remember 171 

Glimpse 172 

Large Enough for Two 173 

The Protest 175 

The Angel of Patience 177 

A Bust of Diana 179 

Folding and Laying Away 180 

Knitting Work 183 

Tired Little Shoes 1S6 

Calling the Roll 187 

Silence 190 

To A New Friend 191 

Waiting for the Decision 192 

Out of the Depths 193 

Lullaby 194 

The Night Round 196 

Communion of Saint Suffering . . . . 198 



CONTENTS. Vll 



Page 



Friend, or Enemy? 200 

Just the Way a Woman wii.t, talk . . . .202 

good-night ' • • • • "°4 

Early Candle-Light 205 

A Song in the Night 206 

Horizon ^°7 

Prejudged 208 

A Capture 210 

Keeping Awake on Christmas Eve ... 211 

Girls and Their Hoods 213 

Hold of Hands 214 



Masts and Spires 



216 



Caprice "'7 

Her Photograph 219 

Little White Jacket 221 

Madeline 223 

The Cottage Porch 225 

The Look of Wonder 230 

Footprints . . . r ^32 

Bon Voyage 233 

E. M. B • • • • 23s 



IN MEMORIAM. 

ELLA M. BAKER. 

May 8, 1SS4. 



Those who knew her can understand how misplaced 
all words of praise must be, remembering that she 
shrank from public avowal as the arbutus hides under 
the snows of March. 

Far better than all the testimony love could bring, or 
artistic delicacy of appreciation could render, is the 
record of the life she lived ; for deeds are more power- 
ful than words, because they bear the very footprints of 
the soul. 

And still some laurel of remembrance should be 
wound about these poems of hers, flowerlike in their 
sensitiveness of thought, their grace and potency of 
expression, with the wood odor of the violet, and the 
fine tracery of the artist's hand that no unpractised touch 
can emulate. There was the voice of the nightingale in 
her songs, though she thought it the note of the wood- 
thrush only. 

But who can give us -the lost colors of the sunset? 
or who can paint us Una, in the clamor of our daily life ? 
So no justice can be done this white soul, whose humility 



X IN MEMORIAM. 

was, like the shield of Britomart, between the world and 
its own unconscious purity. 

One who loved her would lay this tribute of thought 
at her feet. These were her flowers of poesy ; and 
they have the freshness of the moist earth in the spring, 
the coolness of the brook where the wild birds stood to 
drink. 

The world may not heed them, but she would never 
choose that it should. 

The lilies of life lift their cups of gold unnoticed in 
some hidden path, and then the angels gather them for 
the Great King's garden. What though the world knew 
them not, since it is the better for their sweetness ? 

B. S. S. P. 



MEMOIR 



ELLA M. BAKER. 



Ella M. Baker, the subject of this memoir, and 
author of the following poems, was born in Stafford 
Springs, Conn., December ii, 1848, the oldest daughter 
of Gilbert H. and Clara K. Baker. For thirty-five years 
she " lived faithfully a hidden life ; " and on May 8, 1884, 
entered the rest that remaineth for the people of God. 

Now that she has gone away for a time, and the pen 
laid down with which she so often carried help, comfort, 
and strength to others, it is thought well to collect the 
scattered poems of a lifetime, and send them forth in 
the lasting form of a volume, both for the satisfaction of 
the author's friends, and for the good work they still 
have to do. Accompanying these, it is desired that a 
short memoir, or, rather, monograph, be written, to indi- 
cate certain characteristics, perhaps to crystallize certain 
truths, from a life that was lived for others in the deepest 
and broadest sense of the phrase. The honor of being, 
in even this small way, associated with the memory and 
work of Ella Baker is dimmed only by the knowledge 



Xll MEMOIR. 

that the words written down here are all unworthy of 
their subject. 

The story of her life, if fully written out, would be 
the simple story of a woman who never neglected the 
humblest duties of to-day under the spur of ambitious 
hopes for to-morrow. From childhood the most common- 
place affairs of life were used so faithfully by her that 
they lost all tinge of commonness. Somehow, she man- 
aged to clothe the veriest drudgery with sentiment, and 
from the meanest and homeliest surroundings she ex- 
tracted joy. 

Answering a friend once, to whom she had submitted 
the manuscript of her last published book, and who criti- 
cised what seemed to him the too simple, almost undigni- 
fied, heading of a chapter, she wrote : — 

"I suppose you think I again unfortunately descend 
from my dignity (Dignity !) in using sucli a heading as 
' Shoe-strings.' However, it is easily changed. But I 
am much less ashamed of my Mother Goose tendencies 
and similar descents that mortify you so, than it's neces- 
sary to explain. 

Indeed, she had much less need to be ashamed of 
them than any other writer to the constituency for which 
she composed. She had the faculty of clothing simplicity 
with beauty and tenderness to a degree far greater than 
many whom the world calls great. 

From a child Miss Baker wrote verses. She had not 
only a poetical vein of thought, but a rythmical turn of 
expression ; and, in dictating little stories to her mother 
and her child friends, at the age of six and eight, she did 
so almost invariably in rhyme. When ten years old she 
wrote a poem of condolence to an aged grandmother con- 
fined to her bed with sickness, which showed such pre- 
cocity of thought and method, that it was shown to 



MEMOIR. Xlll 

William Cullen Bryant, -who declared that no child of 
that age could have written it without help. This, of 
course, was a real compliment ; but her nature was so 
outraged by this stain, as she thought, upon her truthful- 
ness, that for many years after she could not hear the 
name of Bryant without annoyance, nor even read his 
poems. So was truth even much more precious to her 
than any reward of fame, or mere reputation for bril- 
liancy. 

From girlhood her poems were published, very few of 
the earlier efforts, however, being over her signature. 
This shrinking from connecting her name with her work 
was a characteristic which followed her through life. It 
was only the urgency of friends, and a feeling, I think, 
that perhaps such reluctance might be cowardice, that 
compelled her to have her name printed. Whatever she 
wrote, whatever she did, was done by her as one under 
orders. It was a constant cry, a constant appeal, almost 
apology to her near friends, that she would not have 
done thus and so, were she not impelled by a power 
outside of herself. 

In a time of very great pain, caused by the death of a 
dearly loved brother's wife, she writes : — 

" I work this week, writing sorrowful letters upon let- 
ters, and digging, because I will, will, will, upon ' Soldier 
and Servant.' All voices of the outside people seem very 
far off; but, after a little, I shall hear again. I want to 
get that manuscript on. It seems a thing I'm willed to 
do, — a humble thing enough." 

She did get on with it, and the book was published a 
few weeks before her death. 

In course of writing the same book, so strangely was 
she impelled to the making of it, so utterly impressed 
with the fact that it was a message which throueh her 



XIV MEMOIR. 

the Master must give to the world at whatever sacrifice, 
that she writes : — 

" If this gets to be a book, tliis simple and lowly 
work of mine, there will be blood in it. I shall have 
paid blood for it, — honorable cost." 

While Miss Baker always persisted that her literary 
work was, "by the way," not a profession, but merely 
interjectional, she accomplished a great deal in a com- 
paratively short time. 

In early girlhood she wrote for " Little Pilgrim," 
"Little Corporal," "Mother's Journal;" and later, the 
" Congregationalist," " Faith and Works," " Nursery," 
" Wide Awake," " Harper's Young People," " Young 
Christian Soldier" (to which, in the last year of her life, 
she contributed a series of Sunday-school lesson helps 
for younger children), " Advance," " Living Church," 
" Young Churchman," " Christian Union," and the 
" Springfield Republican." Her favorite noin de plume 
was " Sister Clover," a home name of daily use by her 
immediate family. 

Her mission seemed to be directly to the young peo- 
ple, but how often and again the simple eloquence of her 
words went home to children of larger growth. Two 
books bear her name, both published by Lothrop & 
Co. of Boston, — the first, " Christmas Pie," a collection 
of Christmas stories, and the book in which she was 
most wrapped up of all her literary work, " Soldier and 
Servant," the name, as the idea, taken from the Baptis- 
mal Service in the Book of Common Prayer, where the 
priest receives the child into the congregation of Christ's 
flock, " to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant 
unto his life's end." 

The work which lay the closest to Ella Baker's heart, 
and was to her the great work of her life, was that of 
sister, daughter, and friend. 



MEMOIR. XV 

Of that home relationship, so sweet, tender, beautiful 
and blessed, I do not dare speak. The memory of it 
rests still like a benediction on that home among the 
hills which she so dearly loved, and of which she was so 
living a member. 

As friend and neighbor, — a word she liked, — as a 
part of the community, a member of the village body, a 
citizen, she filled a place which few may attempt after 
her. The Girls' Library Club, the Library Association, 
the almshouse, the poor people and sick people within 
her possible reach, any movement that had in view the 
public good, — in all these she found an outlet for the 
soul heavy with the burden of humanity around her, and 
throbbing in sympathy with all the needs and wants of 
the human brotherhood. The brain was too great for 
the body that held it. Very many times she was com- 
pelled to realize that — 

"They also serve who only stand and wait." 

" To get icsed,'''' she writes to a friend who had been 
fretting under the disappointment of some ambitious 
hopes, — " To get 7iscd, and not to dictate which way, is 
the simple, straight, most actual wish I have. Therefore, 
you will always know that all of me or mine you can 
ever make serve anybody is so much wing power to 
me." 

Just before the illness that finally conquered the worn 
and delicate body. Miss Baker was appointed one of the 
board of visitors to the county children's home, a work 
in which she thoroughly delighted ; but, greatly to her 
regret, weakness prevented her from ever assuming 
actively the duties of the position. 

For many years she was the means of providing 
annually a Christmas-tree, with gifts and good cheer, to 



XVI MEMOIR. 

the inmates of the town poor-house. Not one smallest 
child was forgotten. It was to those woefully forlorn 
and neglected people, with vacant eyes and passionless 
faces, to whom she was most closely drawn. She went, 
like her Master, to the sorest, the neediest, the most 
helpless and wounded of the earth. How many sad 
hearts she has comforted ! To the wings of how many 
bruised and broken lives has she lent strength ! 

Thanks for all this only oppressed her, because she 
was conscious of doing His work, not her own. It 
seemed almost like sacrilege to be thanked and compli- 
mented for going about her Father's business, and walk- 
ing up " the street which is called Straight." 

In all her duties and occupations, Ella Baker was 
peculiarly a child of God. For mere amusement and 
recreation, save as it contributed to the pleasure of 
others, she had little attraction. She took life so 
seriously and earnestly in the sacred recess of her own 
heart, that her keenest pleasures were tinged with a 
vague shadow that was almost pain. 

In very early childhood her religious development 
received something of a check from the strong Puritan 
element of the preaching to which she was accustomed 
to listen. There was never any attraction in her mind, I 
think, towards that stern school of theology which lays 
down iron rules, and makes little or no allowance for indi- 
vidual characteristics. She was scarcely repelled even 
by harsh statements : she only wondered, making the 
remark once to her mother, that she wondered how those 
people who believed all they heard from the pulpit could 
be so calm vmder it. There was a natural hush and 
decorum to her religious experience, which is indicated 
in the fact that when, with her child friends, she "plaj^ed 
at church," she invariably wrote out the prayer for her 



MEMOIR. XVll 

cousin, who acted as " minister," to read. This, too, 
having been Ijrought up amidst Congregational surround- 
ings, and knowing nothing of a liturgical service. 

When, in later years, she learned something of the 
Episcopal Church, she found herself at once at home. 
When it became possible for her to learn the services of 
the Church regularly, by the starting of a mission in 
Stafford, her joy was complete. From the hour in 
which she knelt before the bishop for confirmation, until 
the hour in which the Master 'beckoned for His disciple, 
she was a faithful daughter of the Church, to whose 
historic faith she clung with pathetic strength, whose 
sacrament of the Holy Communion she partook with a 
belief in its efficacy " to the uttermost," — a belief so pas- 
sionate as to be startling. 

She once told her rector that all her religious life had 
been a struggle between an Oliver Cromwell conscience 
and a Charles Kingsley heart, — the contrast being sug- 
gested by the fact that through her paternal grandmother 
she was a descendant of the great Protector, and through 
her mother was also connected with the noble name and 
blood of Canon Kingsley, that knightly soldier of God, 
without fear and without reproach. 

Very much does Grace Church, Stafford, owe to this 
woman, who was a devout communicant, a faithful seeker 
and learner of the truth of God, a beloved teacher in 
the Sunday school, a helpful hand at every occasion 
where her heart and brain could be in possible demand. 

It is singular, from one point of view, how vitally the 
religious life of one so essentially spiritual was bound 
up with the forms of liturgical devotion. The burning 
words of the Prayer Book meant every thing they seemed 
to say, to her. There was, to her mind, in the Church 
no form without spirit, no spirit without form. She was 



XVIU MEMOIR, 

ever thankful to be directed in spiritual matters, — she 
who was so able to direct others. Constantly as she was 
giving out of herself to others, using and spending her- 
self for others, she was still in a manner unconscious of 
it, and was ever expressing her gratitude for what she 
had received, when she herself had been the one to 
bestow most. 

By whatever way she impressed herself upon others, 
whether in the contact of daily life, through her jiublic- 
spirited acts, by means of her wide and varied corre- 
spondence, or through the channel of fugitive poems and 
stories, the impression was always the same. One writes 
to me since her death,- — 

" I regarded her with an esteem which was reverential; 
and, although I never saw her, and knew nothing of her 
besides those revelations of her nature in verse which 
we have printed during several years, I well divined her. 
It must be more easy to believe in the communion of 
saints when one has known such a soul as hers." 

So from all quarters, after her death, came messages 
of grief and condolence to the family from which she 
had been taken. At the funeral all classes were repre- 
sented. She was a part of, and had touched, them all. 
Every thing that could suggest sad thoughts of death 
was covered up at that grave. The very earth thrown 
out to make room for the tired body was hidden under- 
neath the flowers and leaves. Literally she was buried in 
flowers, as all through her life they had been her delight, 
the very breath of her nostrils. 

For many years she had wished to have an appropri- 
ate altar in the chancel of her parish church. Some- 
thing had always hindered. Her longing to make the 
house of God beautiful, which she could not effect in 
her life, was accomplished by her death ; for over the 



MEMOIR. XIX 

grave on the hillside that sunny day in the May Easter- 
tide a plan was agreed upon, and on the Eighteenth Sun- 
day after Trinity, October 12, 1884, a finely carved black 
walnut altar was placed in Grace Church, Stafford 
Springs, to the glory of God, and in sacred memory of 
the one whose desire was thus accomplished, by the 
subscription of her many friends in the parish, and a 
few clergymen under whose respective rectorships she 
had lived. The inscription was simply, — 

/;/ Mcmortam. Ella M. Baker, May EtJi, 1S84, 

— the day of her birth into Paradise. 

A sermon appropriate to the occasion was preached 
by a former rector, who owes to her the incentive and 
inspiration that will last for life ; and the Holy Com- 
munion was celebrated. 

" Was she not glad in Paradise," was said that day, 
" knowing that we are recognizing through her the com- 
munion of saints — knowing that in that 'cloud of wit- 
nesses ' by which we are surrounded we have seen her 
form afar ? " 

It had been Miss Baker's intention to gather her 
poems some day in a volume ; but she lay down her bur- 
dens too soon to add this to them, and it is done for her 
by loving hands. May these words that are prefixed in 
humble prose to the song flights of her poetic nature be, 
if only to a small degree, helpful in throwing into relief 
the grace and tenderness of the vanished hand, the joy 
and gladness of the voice that is still. 

She died as she had lived, planning happiness for 
others, worried a little that so much was done for her, 
totally forgetful of self. In the certain hope of resur- 
rection from the dead, in the communion of the Holy 
Catholic Church, she passed on, leaving her human life 



XX MEMOIR. 

SO broken into fragments among her beloved as that it is 
hard, even over this gap of months, to reahze that she is 
dead. 

She has passed on, not to a land of shadows, but to 
walk before the Lord in the Land of the Living. 

Of death let us say no harsh nor bitter nor wonder- 
ing things for having taken even her, but rather as she 
once wrote, " The reverend name of Death. A mystery 
with august royal seals upon it, none may tamper with it." 

None indeed ! 

BEVERLEY E. WARNER. 



EARLIER POEMS. 



JACK FROST'S STOCKING. 

'Tis Christmas morn, all fair and bright, 
Though thick the snow lies on the ground ; 

The sun sends down a gladsome light, 
And church-bells ring with merry sound. 

Two stockings by a fire-place hang, 
And see ! — two little forms glide in ; 

Now the door closes with a bang, 
And two glad voices raise a din. 

I love to witness their delight. 

As all their treasures they espy — 

Gift after gift revealed to sight. 

Brings from their lips a joyous cry. 

And now, perched on a window-seat, 

\^'ith laps well filled with sweets and toys. 

They watch the passers in the street. 
The merry groups of girls and boys. 

When all at once, they both espy 
An icicle on the sill without — 



i86o. 



EARLIER POEMS. 

"Oh, mother, come and look!" they cry, 
" See Jack Frost's stocking hangmg out." 

Indeed, it is in form exact 

A very pretty Christmas hose. 
With store of good things closely packed, 

And silver-white, sun-tipped with rose. 

They cry — " Let's take it in, and see 
What Santa Claus gives him to-day ; 

He will not know we're making free 
With it — he's far enough away." 

So up they make the window fly, 
And each puts out an eager hand ; 

But Jack himself, who lingers nigh, 
Just touches them with icy wand ! 

The little fingers quick unclose. 

And let the shining stocking fall ; — 

And so you see, nobody knows, 
What 't held, if any thing at all. 



A-STRAWBERRYING. 

Torn straw hats and shoeless feet, 
Dark eyes and cheeks of cherry, 

Shaker bonnets, dresses neat. 
Blue eyes, half shy, half merry. 



A-STRAWBERRYING. 

Gayly along the way they go, 

Checkered with dark and bright, 

Faces full of laughing glow, 
Hearts full young and light. 

Through the sunshine lying bright 
On the earth so glad and green, 

Through the shadows falling light. 
With sunshine flecks between. 

Through the narrow country street, 

Winding its lazy way ; 
Above it, where the branches meet, 

The birds sing loud all day. 

Along the lane so bright and fair. 

With birches growing tall. 
Pink dresses that the roses wear, 

And sunshine over all. 

Along the barren pasture-land, 

With daisies sprinkled over, 
Through fields where thick the grasses grow, 

With buttercups and clover. 

Along the wood, so grand and tall, 
Whose shadows, cool and deep. 

Pure from the dust, from stain or fall. 
Its flowers in safety keep. 



EARLIER POEMS. 



Oh ! pure young heart of childhood, 
Keep long thy bright, fair June, 

The cool, fresh shadow of the wood, 
The bird's glad-hearted tune. 



1863. 



HOW THE VIOLETS CAME FOR MY LITTLE 
PET. 

Folded still in an earth-home deep, 

The violet lies in a peaceful sleep ; 

Soft snow-flakes spread their mantle light 

Over its chamber, out of sight, 

And low beside the little rill. 

It sleeps, and waits, and lieth still. 

But when the smiling spring is come, 
It seeks and finds this hidden home, 
And calls the treasure resting there 
To mount into the upper air. 
Once more to smile beside the brook, 
And in its clear, bright waters look. 

She sends sunbeams, in dress of gold. 
To speak the flight of frost and cold, 
To spread warmth in the sheltered dell. 
And many a wooing story tell. 
How gladly unlocked brooklets sing, 
How bird-son2;s through the warm air ring. 



HOW THE VIOLETS CAME. 

She sends tales by the gentle breeze 
Of the wonders coming to the trees ; 
They tell how tender they will be 
When she her old-time home will see, 
And each and all call tenderly, 
" Oh, wake ! Spring waits for thee ! " 

And the violet wakes at last, 
To find the long winter past ; 
With care she dons her dress of blue. 
Hopeful and trusting and true. 
With a smile in her sweet blue eyes, 
At the thought of her lovers' surprise. 

Then with some graceful touches more. 
She rises out her little door. 
And by the sunbeams she is seen, 
In her hood and cloak of green. 
Standing in beauty shy and sweet, 
Above her winter's still retreat. 



TWO WREATHS. 



A WREATH that her lithe fingers wove. 

Of smiling evergreen. 
Soft curves of trailing greenerie, 

With berries in between, — 



EARLIER POEMS. 

Red berries shining ruddily, 

Like firelight touches there, 
As when its brilliance interbraids 

With twilight's dusky hair ; 
Beneath, the rhyme of blending voices, 

Of musical, light laughter. 
Careless and free, and full and sweet 

As flow of bubbling water. 
Love's fond caress and tender kiss. 

The fall of youthful feet, 
And kindest words, and gentlest tones, 

And all that makes life sweet. 
Bright wreath upon the warm home-walls, 

From thy nook gaily lean. 
For hope is life, and life is joy, 

And joy is ever green ! 



A wreath of immortelles. 

Pale immortelles, that rise 
Among the flowers like white-winged moths 

'Mid radiant butterflies ; 
Hanging through starlight hours 

On the marble's spotless white ; 
Waiting the gilded dawn. 

The day's swift angel-flight ; 
Swaying in whispering winds. 

Wet with the grieving rain ; 
Folded in down of snow. 

Lit with sunset's rose-stain ; 



SOMEBODY S KNOCKING. 

Gathering, sometimes, tear-drops 

From sky-like eyes o'erbending, 
That there grow wistful watching 

For life's appointed ending. 
Yet fold thy hands upon the wreath 

Above that grave's low portal, 
For faith is life, and life is love, 

And love, — love is immortal ! 



iS68. 



SOMEBODY'S KNOCKING. 

There is somebody knocking. Hark ! who can it 

be? 
It's not at the door ; no, it's in the elm-tree. 
I hear it again ; it goes rat-a-tat-tat ; 
Now, what in the world is the meaning of that ? 

I think I can tell you. Ah ! yes ! it is he ! 
It's y8j.mg Master Woodpecker, gallant and free. 
He's dressed very handsomely (rat-a-tat-tat). 
Just like a young dandy, so comely and fat. 

He's making his visits this morning you see ; 
Some friends of his live in that tall old elm-tree ; 
And, as the trees have no door bells (rat-a-tat-tat), 
Of course he must knock; what is plainer than that? 

Now Madam Bug hears him rap at her door ; 

Why doesn't she come ? Does she think him a bore ? 



5 EARLIER POEMS. 

She Stays in her chamber, and keeps very still, 
I guess she's afraid that he's bringing a bill. 

" I've seen you before, my good master," says she ; 
"Although I'm a bug, sir, you can't humbug me. 
Rap on if you please ; at your rapping I laugh. 
I'm too old a bug to be caught with your chaff." 

The poor little baby bugs are not so wise ; 

They run out to meet him. " Good-morning ! " he 

cries ; 
Then gobbles them all with a rat-a-tat-tat, 
Without even stopping to take off his hat. 



OVER AND OVER. 

Oh ! she is so tired of the over and over. 

Poor little impatient pet ! 
Tear-mists gather blinding and hide from her Ending 

The seam where the needle is set ; 

The long, long seam of over and over, 

Its stitches so painfully slow, 
So wet with the tear-rains, so soiled wuth the dust- 
stains. 

In crooked and uneven row. 

For the thread it will knot sewing over and over, 
The needle will rust and bend, 



A HEART TOWARD GOD. 9 

As it wearily lingers in the hot little fingers 
So far, so far from the end. 

" Oh ! it is so hard, this over and over ! " 

And deep in my heart I cover 
How with desolate pain I repeat it again, 

" So hard, this over and over ! " 

For I, too, am learning the over and over ; 

My teacher is patient with me ; 
It is the long strife of the years of a life 

That lonely and emjDty must be, 

To bear : little learner, the over and over 

Of lagging day after day 
From whose work and endeavor, my sun is forever, 

Forever, now, shut away. 

Yet, sometime, seeing clearer we shall praise the 
dear love, 
(My child, I know it is true). 
That, despite our blind asking, kindly gave us our 
tasking. 
Our over and over to do. 
1S67. 



A HEART TOWARD GOD. 

While through the daylight's crystal bands 
Sifted the last pale sunshine-sands, 
I sat and wept with folded hands, 



lO EARLIER POEMS. 

Mourning that I had sheaved up naught, 
Could render nothing I had wrought, 
Save erring in the ends I sought. 

But while I let my hot tears How, 
Anon there seemed a voice to grow, 
Which murmured tenderly and low, 

" Is it so much at work the hands have done, 
Is it so much at prizes we have won, 
Is it so much at races we have run, 

" That God looks, watching all our ways, 
While they wind through the changeful days 
We would set to His praise, 

" As at the heart, continual to try 

If it doth keep its windows open high, 

And looking towards the sky, 

" Clear-shining, pure and clean. 
With no spot on the crystal seen. 
No shadow in between ? 

" That thence all longings that aspire, 

All seeking, aim, desire. 

As leaves bend toward the sun, look higher. 

" Though marred thy work be oft with soil, 
Though vain may seem the earnest toil, 
The honest effort met with foil, 



THE TWO GUESTS. II 

" Towards God thy faint heart keep ; 
His sunshine shall within it creep, 
And all the shadows oversweep. 

" Though thy task trivial seem, below 

The high realities, that so 

Sublime from thy soul's outlooks show. 

" Though the world's voices round thee ring, 
The Circe tempt, the Syren sing. 
Though faint for angel-minist'ring. 

" And fearful lest thou yield and stray 
From out the straight and narrow way, 
Away from Christ, the Guide, the Stay. 

" Towards God thy tried heart keep, 

And stay not now to rest or weep ; 

Ere long ' He givcth His beloved sleep ! ' " 



iS6S. 



THE TWO GUESTS. 

Joy knock'd ! 

My gates I opened wide 

My welcome guest to meet ; 
With gladness and with pride 

His nearing steps to greet. 
He came — he dwelt with me. 

He sat beside my hearth, 



12 EARLIER POEMS. 

And filled my halls with gaiety, 

With music and with mirth. 
His fingers on the harp were light, 

His songs he sang were gay ; 
My life with him was smooth and bright 

For many a sunny day. 
Springing his airy steps along 

Blossoms his feet caressed, 
And birds burst forth with gleeful song — 

O, beautiful, bright guest ! 
And yet sometimes to me, 

Like a sudden tolling bell 
In the midst of gaiety, 

Some solemn question fell : 
" Will he forever tarry bright, 

Thy guest, thy cherished guest ? 
And does he lead thee, plain and right, 

To calm, and peace, and rest ? " 
But I forgot in revelry 

The warning kindly given ; 
I would not think, I would not see 

My guest was sent from heaven. 



Grief knock'd ! 

My gates I would shut hard. 

My doors I would bar tight. 
In vain I closed — in vain I barred — 

Against his silent might. 
The garlands faded, withered, died ; 

The festal fires were gone ; 



1 868. 



GOING A-PICNICING, I 3 

The unbidden guest sat by my side, 

With him I was alone. 
His songs rung sore my heart, 

His tales, his every word 
Struek like a sharp and piercing dart 

On the trembling soul that heard. 
How 'neath his touch my sweet harp wailed, 

My gold-dust turned to sand. 
My birds took flight, my strong oak failed ; 

How cold, how cold his hand ! 
But when at night I sat alone 

And through the glaring day, 
Ever I heard a soothing tone 

Over and over say, 
" Be not cast down, my child ; 

In paths they have not known. 
To you so dark and wild, 

I lead and keep my own. 
I chasten those whom I receive. 

And scourge the ones forgiven." 
So I am calm, although I grieve 

Knowing my guest from heaven. 



GOING A-PICNICING. 

r. 

A JOURNEY through Morning Land 
Sometime was made. 



14 EARLIER POEMS. 

Wading through sunshine 

And fording the shade. 
Sober dame Clematis 

Saw them go by, 
Spreading lier wools to bleach, 

There where they lie. 
She looked up but gravely, 

And sighed a mild sigh, 
For pleasuring's plenty 

And wool, you know, high. 
But Thistle-down followed 

Far out of sight. 
And Golden-rod nodded. 

And laughed, yes, outright ! 

Baskets to right of them, 

Shyly concealed ; 
Baskets to left of them, 

Half-way revealed; 
Baskets in front of them, 

Brazen and bold. 
But every one of them 

Secrets untold. 
Oh, unsolved mystery, 

Hidden from sight 
In napkined sanctity, 

Sacred and white. 
Sent they no timid thought 

Towards thy retreat ? 
Dreamed they naught of sublime then, 

Mused nothing of sweet ? 



GOING A-PICNICING. I 5 

Pink ribbons a-shimmer, 

Some ravellings, may be, 
Of a low morning cloud 

That dropped into the sea. 
They tangle the wind 

And they flutter all day ; 
What harm to be looking, 

It happens that way ? 
Bright eyes they were brightest, 

Lit and a-glow, 
And whose voice was sweetest, 

The listening winds know. 
For all day they carried 

And all day they brought 
The cadence of joy 

Or of jesting they caught. 

Bushes impertinent 

Peeped in to stare ; 
Bushes intolerant 

Beckoned " Your fare ! " 
Tall bushes brigand-like 

Stood in the way ; 
Thick bushes curious 

Cried to them " Stay ! " 
While bushes villainous 

Stood by to flout, 
And bushes insolent 

To scoff at and scout. 
Aimed for by branch and twig, 

Jostled by rut and rock. 



l6 EARLIER POEMS. 

Still rode the baskets safe 
Through every shock. 



In silence chathedral 

Waited the wood ; 
Like its saints and its prophets 

The reverend pines stood. 
Stirless the shadows bowed, 

Nuns clad in grey ; 
Noiseless among them crept 

Sunbeams astray. 
But the leaf-satined floor 

Was rustling astir 
With heavier footfalls 

Than light chestnut burr. 
Its shade was a-flicker 

With hue after hue, 
Its green aisles a-quiver 

With sounds ringing new ; 
Its treasure up-rooted. 

Its trinkets sought after, 
While gleeful, light laughter 

Struck every high rafter. 
While Squirrel peeped slyly 

And Rabbit breathed low, 
While Cricket hid frightened 

And let his pipe go, 
And the timid young wood-bird 

Made wild haste away. 



GOING A-PICNICING. 1/ 

A strange nest was builded, 

In skilful array 
Of dry twig and branchlet, 

'Till out of it came 
Fire's eagle-winged nestlings, 

The wild brood of flame. 
And she in philosophy 

More versed than pies, 
In books and in baking 

Unequally wise, 
Potatoes, not poets. 

Choosing her part ; 
Codfish, not custom. 

Taking to heart ; 
Heroic philanthropist, 

Fork in her hands, 
There by the glowing coals 

With high resolve stands ! 

Meandered the spider, 

Taking survey. 
Round river of table-cloth 

Flowing away. 
Oh ! then was unveiling 

Of victorious arts, 
Sonnets in sugar. 

Sunset in tarts. 
Foam-architecture, 

Sculpture in dough. 
Floury geology, 

Carviniis in snow. 



l8 EARLIER POEMS. 

Oh ! well for the spider 

To gaze long and deep. 
Oh ! well for some witness 

Their record to keep ; 
For like frost on the meadow, 

Like froth on the river, 
Like dew on the morning, 

They vanished — forever ! 
But the little brown tenants 

Of moss-thatch and stone 
From the crumbs of the feasting 

Could build for their own. 
When the shadows and silence 

Again fell a-calm. 
And the solemn, lone pines 

Chanted low vesper psalm. 
1S69. 



POEMS OF NATURE, 



PRUDENCE. 

When I became aware 
Of Pussy Willow, there 

By road and meadow-edge 
On tiptoe peeping out, 
There was no blue-bird's shout, 

Nor robin's, in her hedge. 

Steel was the cold March sky, 
Ay, snow-flakes fluttered by ; 

Old March his moods we know, 
And how a flower would fare 
That ventured, pink and rare, 

Within his reach to glow. 

But I laughed out to see 
How dauntless, safe and free. 

Could Pussy Willow show, — 
A country cousin, in 
Her wrappings not too thin 

For wind, and may-be snow ! 



20 POEMS OF NATURE. 

No fear, indeed, of her, 
So warmly clad with fur. 

The prudent little thing ! 
No wonder she can dare, 
First of her kin, the air 

That sets us shivering. 

Prudence will have its day, 
And long this silver gray 

She'll wear, grandmother's way ; 
At last, full late enough, 
She'll drop the heavy stuff, 

In gold, for silver, gay. 



A SONG OF THE NEST. 

There was once a nest in a hollow, 
Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed, 
Soft and warm and full to the brim : 
Vetches leaned over it, purple and dim, 

With buttercup buds to follow. 

Jean Ingelow. 

Sleep, birdie, little, new birdie 

In the new and beautiful nest. 
Soft-lined as a rich jeweled-casket. 

And downily shaped to the breast. 
My song of the nest will not wake thee 

More than winds as they chant in the clover 
And the world will be better and gladder, 

And wiser for hearing it over. 



A SONG OF THE NEST, 21 

It's a song how this world is so wide, sweet ; 

How deep down the ground is ; how high 
Above oak-rib and rafters of hemlock 

The wonderful sun, and the sky. 
Yet how, flying, we needn't fear falling 

From even earth's loftiest crest, 
For, somehow. Love made us ; we're right. Sweet ; 

Love is the song of the nest ! 

The song is. We're tiny and fragile, 

While the world is peopled with vast, 
Great crowding giants of creatures ; 

Still they jostle us not, going past. 
And there's food enough left, and to spare, dear. 

And room enough, room of the best. 
For Love takes care of that, birdie, 

Love is the song of the nest. 

It's a song of dewdrops and sunbeams, 

Dawns and fresh-water springs, 
Of violets, lilies and rose-buds, 

All pure and young growing things ; 
A song of wings and their liftings, — 

Gilt clouds, the serene air above ; 
A song of singing for rapture, 

And, ever, a song of Love. 

And the song is, I love you, I love you. 

My darling of every sweet name ; 
It's a song full of pet words and kisses 

A song of my gladness you came. 



22 POEMS OF NATURE. 

Hush, lovely one, fed, brooded over, 
Naught need you do save to rest ; 

And it's Love, O it's Love I'm singing, — 
Love is the sons: of the nest. 



PUSSY WILLOW. 



Who knows what Pussy Willow knows ? 
She grows on the edge of the snows, 
Sleet cuts sharply and storm-wind blows, 
Not a bud blooms, nor green leaf shows ; 
Did she mistake to come so soon .'' 
Arch and shining, from night to noon. 
Still she rocks unconcerned ; she knows 
Something we do not know — and goes 
Living on safely as the rose. 

II. 
W^e know what Pussy knows, may be, 
Though she lives it more fearlessly; 
In our own place, in our own hour 
Safe are we, though all hostile power 
In seeming ruin whelm our lot. 
Ruined we cannot be, cannot 
Fail or be foiled, so long as each 
That instinct follows, fills that reach 
Appointed his or hers to be ! 
Therefore let each soul hardily 



ONCE A YEAR THE MAY-FLOWERS BLOW. 23 

With faithfulness act out its part, 

Keeping a high, undaunted heart ; — 

Some growths have March and some have June ; 

Neither's too late, neither's too soon. 



ONCE IN A YEAR THE MAY-FLOWERS 
BLOW. 

Once in a year the may-flowers blow, 

Opening deep to their hearts of snow, 

Pouring their precious perfumes wide. 

Nor saving one hoarded drop beside; — 

Sweet spendthrifts ! that, somehow, God seems to 

choose 
Before the economical Jews ! 

But all the year else, 'neath May-flower's thatch, 
No face, feel as you may at the latch. 
Peeps from the lattice ; the tenants seem 
Idle sloth-lovers, who lie and dream, 
Contented just to be warm and still, 
With close-drawn curtain and silent sill. 

Through the long months when the leaves lie bare, 

Read, passer-by, in the fair name there. 

Of Charity, who is heavenly wise, 

That thus lives idlest to our stern eyes. 

It may be their time to flower, but wait, — 

A time long hindered, sometimes, and late. 



24 POEMS OF NATURE. 

Let us step carefully, then, above 

Mere leaves, empty of aught to love ; 

To all their season at last comes right, 

Joyful to push up through to the light. 

Is it ours to chide while we miss the flower ? 

No man knoweth the day or the hour. 



TO LET. 



There's a little brown tenement over the way 
Standing empty and silent now day after day ; 
The tenants have vanished from threshold and 

thatch, 
But left the gates wide, and the door on the latch. 
And open, ungarrisoned, enter who may, 
Stands the little brown tenement over the way. 

Set lofty, set airy against the sunrise, 
It catches the rose of the dawn's slow surprise ; 
Yet firm its foundation, its frame-work secure 
Against the north wind and the storm to endure, 
So fair, the skies golden, so staunch, the skies grey, 
Lies the little brown tenement over the way. 

With loving fidelity builded together 
I saw it rise slowly in dreamy May weather ; 
No clamor of hammer nor tool's steely gleam 
Wedged timber to timber, and beam upon beam. 
While the carpenters patiently worked by the day 
On the little brown tenement over the way. 



A BUNCH OF VIOLETS. 2$ 

The walls are all woven with lichen gilt over, 
And soft mosses mingle where silken hairs cover ; 
E'en though they be narrow, the chambers are 

high — 
For it stoops to no roof but the grand inlaid sky ; 
If the householder gloried, who says him nay, 
In his little brown tenement over the way ? 

To let ! for the casements are vacant and lone ; 
To let ! for the bright, songful inmates are flown ; 
Save for wayfaring leaf or for white wing of snow 
None home-wise or guest-wise go forward and fro ; 
But I smile when I see thee', and dream of the May, 
Dear little brown tenement over the way ! 



A BUNCH OF VIOLETS. 

While the vast throng in the street swept by 

And the city's hum swelled loud. 
One homesick soul to itself complained, 

" O the loneliness of the crowd ! " 

While quiet toiled in her empty house 

A patient woman, that day, 
" Heaven cheer and keep thee, my absent one ! " 

Was all that her heart could say. 

How can we tell, by the telegraph wires 
What message may pass below ? 



26 POEMS OF NATURE. 

How subtly transmits invisible love 
Betwixt us, can we, then, know ? 

An unknown hand through that shifting street 

Bore a few violets by ; 
The wistful soul thrilled with quick relief, 

Though it scarcely reasoned why. 

From the violet's fearless innocence. 

From a flower's familiar face. 
Cheered with a thought of that distant friend 

The stranger took heart of grace. 

She did not see that her wish came true, 
He heard not its sound, — and yet 

No swifter ministry did he need 
Than came by a violet. 

By countless such untracked ways (7^^ grants 
Love passage from heart to heart ; 

No prayer miscarries that's left with Him, 
Though friends may be seas apart ! 



SCRUPLES. 



Dear arbutus, flushing pink, 
Ere I gather you I think, 
Can you bear to go away 
In a pent-up house to stay .-' 



SCRUPLES. 27 

I can offgr you no place 

That with yours compares in grace, 

Or can match your lovely face. 

Oh ! your couch of leaf and moss 

With such vines is wrought across ; 

Troubadour-like, ev'ry hour 

Talks the brook beside your bower ; 

If you thirst, sweet dews are brought, 

And, with ministries unsought. 

Sun, and earth, and air, and sky, 

To caress you, all are by ; 

In your praise the robin sings ; 

You will lose all these glad things. 

Can you bear to go away. 

With me in my home to stay ? 



Little maid with wistful eyes, 
Gladly from my couch I rise ; 
Gladly where you list I go ; 
This I blossom for, and grow. 
Little maid, could you, then, bear 
Selfishly to sip and share 
Day by day in sun and air. 
Day by day in love and care, 
But ne'er give the love anew ? 
Ne'er go ministering too ? 
Not to languish where I please. 
Not to bide in petted ease. 
Count I by my being meant 
And its fulness of content. 



28 POEMS OF NATURE. 

Living's giving ; I to live 
Freely love and freely give, 
Joyful Jill my treasure spare, 
Just to comfort anywhere. 



ACROSS LOTS. 



"The shortest way is 'cross lots," said 
The Host ; " You cannot miss the red 
House ; mount that hill ; go straight ahead." 



Two fields away the red house stands ; 
First the bald slope of pasture lands 
You climb ; crumbling beneath your heel 
The brittle, warm, gray moss you feel ; 
Blackberry vine with prickly clutch. 
Like kittens' claws snatches at such 
Ribbon or fold as it can touch ; 
Your foot a ground-bird's nest well nigh 
Invades, where three frail ovals lie ; 
And, further on, in the short grass, 
A very fairy tent you pass. 
Of sheerest cobweb ever spun 
Its canvas is, stretched in the sun. 
And pale pink petals of wild rose 
Are strewn upon its roof ; there shows 
Beneath this canopy a red 
Ripe strawberry — and who instead 



ACROSS LOTS. 29 

More royal ? — Breath of growing things 
Mingled you breathe ; the light wind flings 
Scents separate out, — wild rose, sweet fern, 
Birch, brake, whichever way you turn. 
Somewhere a hidden brook its rune 
Hums low, and rustling leaves the tune 
Accompany with languid beat ; 
A rabbit runs by, scared and fleet — 
Ah ! thou faint pencil-mark of path, 
Can there be other track that hath 
Such charms ? — Go winding on and on, 
For all the traveler's haste seems gone. 



But climb the old wall here, gray-green 

With lichen, chinks of light between 

The loose-piled stones. No path leads through 

The mowing field, all damp with dew ; 

It lies untracked, a sheeny haze ; 

On its smooth breadth your trail will raise 

An embossed hue as now you go 

To gather daisies where they grow ; 

Now nodding columbines, that blow 

In mists of grasses to and fro. 

The buttercups their burnished gold 

Like lit lamps ev'ry where uphold ; 

But though the field is idly gay 

For the young robins school to-day 

Is keeping, and the teacher's note 

Sounds steady from a tireless throat. 

While you the tangled clover wade 

By bees, half-jealous room is made 



30 rOEMS OF NATURE. 

And hov'ring butterflies, arrayed 
In glor}^ 

Good Host, were one stayed 
Ecstatic here like them all day, 
'Twere easy ! Is the shortest way 
Across lots ? Let the truant say. 



A CAREER. 

Babe Dandelion 

Shines on the ground 
And like a gold piece 

Waits to be found ; 
Babe Dandelion 

Laughs at the rain, 
Trying all dream-tunes 

O'er her in vain ; 
Willfully all day, 

Spite lullaby, 
Broad awake stares she 

Up at the sky. 

Child Dandelion 

Sits in the sun, 
Hides in the grasses, 

Peeps forth for fun. 
Shakes out her gold locks, 

Beckons the bees, 



A CAREER. 31 

Plays with the breezes, 
Takes her own ease. 



Maid Dandelion 

All her lamps fills 
At the red sunbeams 

'Thwart morning hills ; 
Lets them flare broadly 

All through the day, 
Then at the night-fall 

Smolder away. 

Dame Dandelion 

Lives all alone 
High in her castle 

Of cobweb stone, 
Castle built noiseless, 

Reared fairily, 
All casements silver 

Set airily. 

Dame Dandelion, 

Hair turned to gray, 
What is she thinking, 

Thinking all day ? 
Ah, child ! ah, maiden ! 

Deem not that you 
All sweetest thoughts have 

That ever grew. 



32 POEMS OF NATURE. 

Grown frail and faded, 
Those loosened here 

Easily soar and 

Mount without fear. 



DAISIES BLOWING IN THE WIND. 

O DAISIES ! blowing in the wind 
With alternate, slow ease, — 

My lady's fingers troubling light 
The white piano keys 

Might rhythmic motions cause, and lift 
Or drop the notes like these ! 

And 'twere well thought that more things 

Than fabled singing spheres 

To music swing so delicate 

That he their song who hears, 

And knows its melody divine, 

Must have seraphic ears. 

Where the morning sun flows over 

With golden tides the bare 

Broad pasture-land, I list and look, 

Suspecting music there ; 

daisies blowing in the wind, 

1 pray you, let me share ! 

Where is the unseen score ye spell ? 
What is the tune it makes ? 



OUT OF FASHION. 33 

How many little choristers 

A whole field-full it takes ! 

Of chancels filled with surpliced boys 

I dream, for your sweet sakes. 

Deaf, curious, attentive, I 

Upon the dry moss lie 

And study by the hour how you 

Between me and the sky 

Beat time, with rests irregular, 

And half-notes measured by 

This unseen score you know so well, 

You know — and why not I ? 

I cannot catch nor guess the air, 

Yet stealing over me 

Comes sense of soothing psalm-tunes played 

Well and accordantly ; 

If thus my life shall seem to those 

Who judge by what they see. 

Yet cannot read its secret score, 

Happy indeed 'twill be ! 



OUT OF FASHION. 

The flowers in Grandma's beds that grow 
Are out of fashion, as you know ; 
So Pink, Sweet-William, Violet, 
Balsam, Verbena, Mignonette 



34 POEMS OF NATURE. 

Met in convention, as I heard, 

And on tlie solemn fact conferred, 

Discussing in some trepidation, 

" Are we a superseded nation ? " 

" Your out of style, you know you are ! " 

The Sun-flower cried, mocking afar, 

" I am the fashion, I ! behold 

My brown aesthetic, and old-gold ; 

Nor do I see how one can bear 

Such gaudy hues as those you wear. 

Then you have such old-fashioned taste 

For strong perfumes, which you just waste 

In a profusion, vulgar quite ; 

And your antique ideas of height 

Are out of date, really absurd ! " 

Of their reply I heard no word. 

But, as it seems, after debate, 

Some one was heard to intimate 

The motion of appointing two 

Who would report what they should do ; 

And this committee, hard to get, 

At last was Pink and Mignonette. 

Long their decision was delayed ; 

The Four-o'clocks slept in the shade, 

When, midst a breathless hush, they all 

Listen to hear the verdict fall : 

*' Having deliberated, we 

Agree no other course we see. 

As far as us concerns, and so 

Applying to you all, we know. 

But this : that Pink grow pinker yet 



COBWEBS. 35 

And go on so ; that Mignonette 
Continue sweet." On this the crowd 
Unfashionable smiled and bowed, 
Flutt'ring consent. And therefore they 
Deck Grandma's garden to this day, 
And some, who lack aesthetic sense, 
Are known to steal them through the fence ! 



COBWEBS. 



I. 
Will the day be fair or no ? 

Waking up before the sun. 
How the children barefoot run, 
Throw the window-blinds back wide, 
Push the tangled curls aside, 
And in rumpled ruffles stand. 
Night-gown caught up in one hand, 
Peering at the morning gray ! 

Bless the spider spinners ! they, 

Sitting up to work all night 

Have left proudly strewn in sight 

Webs, like napkins that look much. 

Fairy table-cloths, or such. 

Spread with dew, that's served in their 

Frail, round, antique crystal ware. 



36 POEMS OF NATURE. 

How they know before we do 
That the skies will keep their blue, 
I cannot declare, but ne'er 
Child doubts that it will hold fair 
If these wise web-spinners dare 
Leave their gossamers stretched there. 
So light-heartedly they go 
Dancing, witching to and fro. 
Quite contented, just to know 
Cobwebs low, cobwebs low ! 

II. 
Will the day be wet or dry ? 

Slowly, slowly comes daylight ; 
Every height with mist is white ; 
Restlessly the damp wind blows, 
Scatters petals from the rose, 
Rudely tips the poplar leaves 
Till each silver side upheaves. 
Rustles through late fields of grains, 
Frets, and to itself complains. 
Chimneys listlessly unfurl 
Dull, thin smoke all out of curl ; 
Clouds scud thick, like tarnished sails 
Toward the north, and pensive quails 
Clear and sweet enunciate 
Their two syllables of fate. 
Hopeful Blue Eyes, with her face 
Pressed against the curtain lace 



UP IN A nANDELION BALL. 37 

Marks how prudent spider hung 
On a bush her hammock swung ; — 
Are there cobwebs in her eyes ? 
Something dim I there see rise ; 
Well I know the reason why, — 
Cobwebs high, cobwebs high ! 



UP IN A DANDELION BALL. 

Ik I could choose my place, from which 

To see the world outside withal, 
I think I'd straightway seat me up 

In a dandelion ball. 
Of all air-castles is not this 

As dainty a one as the best ? 
So perfectly its framework joints, 

Its light foundations rest. 
It seems a very bubble, hung 

And poised mysteriously ; 
Being besides, all crystal panes 

Conveniently as can be. 
And the way into my parlor, 
(If once I could get there !) 

Like the spider's in the ballad. 
Would be up a winding stair, 

For, observatory-like 
Is my round tower built, and high. 

I suppose long, spiral stairs 



38 POEMS OF NATURE. 

From the dark base lead, whereby 
Whoever knows their secret can 
Climb ujo ; but, — more's the pity ! — I 

Cannot track out that mystery 
Howe'er I patient spy and pry. 
Lying and listening in the grass. 
With the round tower o'er my head, 
Rogue Buttercup tickling my chin, 
And my learned book left unread. 

I wish I could ! I wish I had 

The missing clew ! then who of all 
Castellans proud as I, set up 

In my dandelion ball ? 
My crystal palace in the sun 
Would shine like silver, finely wrought 

And burnished, before all men's eyes ; 
Through my uncounted windows caught. 

Should come sweet sights of butterflies, 
Grave insects at their deep affairs. 

Grass wet with dew, birds, hurried bees 
Complaining of their many cares ; 

Sweet sounds of breathing roots, and flap 
Of rustling wings ; sweet scents 

Of clover and unnamed perfumes ! 
There, one among the field's contents, 

Who knows what I inight overhear 
What receipts catch ? for Nature far 

More wise is in her management, 
Than any of us mortals are. 

Now Honeysuckle's honey-bags 



MUSIC BETWEEN THE ACTS. 39 

How is it they're sewed up so tight, 

And yet no seam ? The Lilies, how 
Ring they, and not by sound, but sight ? 

Ah ! none knows how wise I might get 
Watching, barkening night and day, 

For there a philosopher might grow, 
All interruptions kept away 

By the safe secret of the stairs ! 

And so till the sky should fall 
Rocked by the winds I'd sit in state, 
Up in a dandelion ball. 



MUSIC BETWEEN THE ACTS. 

The gorgeous pageant of the summer's done. 
So rich that filled our eveiy ravished sense ; 

Nor yet, in autumn's glorious role begun 
The lit-up hills, the harvestings commence. 

But next, a hush, like waiting in the air, 
The sense of listening and of quiet brings ; 

No bird works now, with busy, noisy care. 
Nor, like a child in church, irreverent sings. 



The orchestra plays sweet, 
Keeping to time beat slow ; 

It is a steady tune, 

Keyed soft, pitched low. 



40 POEMS OF NATURE. 

The fairy instruments, 

Of perfect make, 
In every chord and string 

Vibrant, awake. 

Grasshopper playing flute, 

And cricket violin, 
Pianissimo duet. 

Well blended, first begin. 
At forte cicada 

In intervals but rare, 
Strikes 'thwart the monotone 

Bass trumpet's vivid blare. 

To everything a time, 

A use, an hour, shall be ; 
To every voice an ear ; 

Such is the fixed decree. 
So, Nature leaves a pause 

That when best fitted here 
Musicians' smallest pipes 

May play, and man may hear. 

How smooth their well-learned parts ! 

How even and serene 
The gentle orchestra 

Doth thus discourse between ! 
But we who list and wait, — • 

Each to the rest unknown, 
Sets to the wordless song 

A meaning: of his own. 



GOLD AND GRAY. 4 1 



GOLD AND GRAY. 
I. 
When golden rod is gay, my dear, 
The autumn leaves are here. 
And high and low, and far and near 
They deck the waning year, 
When golden rod is gay, my dear, 
When golden rod is gay. 

Oh ! hush around her lies the air. 

And mellow lights are there. 

Ripe fragrance of the orchards rare. 

Low music everywhere, 

When golden rod is gay all day 

"When golden rod is gay. 

A-nod, a-gleam, a-lit, a-shine, 

She lifts her torches fine. 

And drinks old year's best hoarded wine. 

His mellowest sunshine. 

Fair golden rod along the way, 

O golden rod, the gay ! 

II. 

When golden rod is gray, my dear. 
Ah ! faded mount and mere 
Its best and brightest dead and sere. 
Storm, wind, and winter here, 
WHien golden rod is gray, they say, 
When golden rod is gray. 



42 -.POEMS OF NATURE. 

By windy wayside, barren hill, 

'Tis tenantless and still, 

No oil her emptied lamps to fill 

Nor guest nor song at will, 

When golden rod sits gray, all day, 

When golden rod is gray. 

And yet with patience's own meek grace 

She in her unlit place 

Uplifts her wan and pallid face 

Above the snow's embrace, 

Old golden rod along the way, 

O golden rod the gray. 



When golden hair is gray, my dear. 

Thou wilt no less uprear 

Brow written Resignation, clear, 

To deep for fret or fear. 

Who bears that sign each wintry year. 

Can but be lovely here, 

Though golden hair is gray, my dear, 

When golden hair is gray. 



THE LAST OF SUMMER. 

O, Summer, stay ! why haste away 

Like one who takes from me by stealth 

Some precious thing, and runs to hide, 

Snatched swift and sly, my own, my wealth } 



THE LAST OF SUMMER. 43 

Too likely this, O lovely thief ! 
But I am loth to lend belief. 

Why haste away ? Yet, Summer, stay, 
Perchance a gift to leave behind 

Is in thy mind, and I shall find 

When thou art gone the token kind ; 

Thus he for thanks who will not wait, 

Leaving a prize, is known too late. 

But she is gone, nor will return ; 

Each can but look himself within, 
Anxious count o'er his former store 

To find hath ought abstracted been. 
Or hath he in possession more 
Of treasure than he had before. 

Ah ! who but misses something now ? 

The costly loss but himself knows. 
Yet things are left — did she forget ? — 

Some memory, some sheaf, some rose. 
We charge on thee, swift Summer deft. 
Both something taken, something left. 

Summer's wide, royal all, she threw 

Wide open lavishly ; and free 
Were we to choose, welcome to use. 

And keep our own. Our fault if we. 
Failing to store up her largess, 
Mourn now more taken, left us less. 



44 POEMS OF NATURE. 



A BUTTERFLY IN BOWDOIN SQUARE. 

It might have been 
The fluttering petals of a yellow rose 
That blew about, so light and gold were those. 
Wee wings. Above the hard stone street, 
With all its noise and snarl of wheels and feet, 
The yellow butterfly went flying, 
And, smiling, one still felt like crying, 
" Stranger, are you lost here ? and do you crave 
A friendly guide to beckon on the pave, 
Or show you some safe inn ? 

When did you come, 
And how ? Pray, what air line brought you 
The journey long in safe condition through 
From country meadows to the city's heart ? 
And, sooth to say, I wonder for my part 
What strange ambition moved you, butterfly. 
What's the metropolis to you, and why 
Scorned you ancestral j^laces still and hid, — 
Gentian and fern and golden-rod amid ? 
But yet, you soft, sweet, silent thing, I could 
Not chide ; on what errand of special good 
You may be sent, I, wond'ring, cannot guess ; 
So, seeing you lost in the throng, I bless 
You ignorantly, and also go my way, 
Not unaware that your commission may 
Have touched me some." 



AS SWALLOWS FLY. 45 



AS SWALLOWS FLY. 



Twilight in pearl and gold 

Broods on the Bay ; 
Sunset's flame redly burns 

Further away. 
Ships drop down river ; 

A prisoned fire-fly 
Harbor light quivers ; 

And, dark against sky, 
Whirling like autumn leaves 

Home fly the swallows ; 
Flock after flock gathers 

Fleetly and follows. 
As swallows fly fearless 

And fast from the river. 
When the long day of joy 

Returns to the Giver, 
Warned from their wanderings, 

And true to the nest ; 
All the heart's hopes and cares 

Loose to their rest ! 
So they shall fly swiftly 

W^ith instinct as true 
Knowing their abiding 

As frail swallows do ; 
Not reas'ning, not wond'ring. 

But simple, secure, 
In Thee, who art Home to us. 

Waiting, warm, sure. 



46 POEMS OF NATURE. 

As swallows fly far, yet 

Unerring, and find 
Ere the darkness their covert, 

When thus human-kind 
Cross swiftly our vision, 

Fly past to the west. 
Whirling, it seems, like leaves 

On, at the best, 
Grant, O thou loving Lord, 

To guide, even so. 
Back to Thy breast at last 

All as they go. 
Idling or toiling, though 

Day long they be, 
Thoughtless perhaps, content 

Distant from Thee, 
Remind them ere dark that 

Home they may hie — 
O Thou who upbraidest not — 

As swallows fly ! 



AUTUMN COLOR. 

SUNSHINE ON YELLOW LEAVES. 

The yellow tree stands shining in the light : 

Among its thinning leaves 
The morning sunshine climbs, and out and in, 

Vine-like, it twines and weaves, 



UNCONSCIOUS MINISTRY. 4/ 

Until for prophet or for king 'twere well 

To turn aside and see 
This sight — how as a candle lit by day, 

Flaring, the yellow tree 
Upon th' exhaustless sunshine carelessly 

Scatters its duller gold, 
And, foolish virgin ! lets its little oil 

Waste quickly out, all told. 

RAIN ON RED LEAVES. 

Upon the misty hills where sullen rain 

Weaves cobwebs thick and gray, 
How the red tree a deep-hued radiance warm 

Lends to the dark, chill day ! 
Surely, it is a trick of fire-light thrown 

Against the storm's bleak spray. 
E'en as the dancing flames upon the wall 

At twilight flick'ring play ! 
So the wayfarer hails the cheery tree, 

And walks with step more fleet, 
Reminded of some hearth as ruddily 

That glows, waiting his feet. 



UNCONSCIOUS MINISTRY. 

We took the well-known path that led 

Across the wood, arched overhead 

With boughs now bare. She sighed and said : 



48 POEMS OF NATURE. 

" How fast these many days have fled 
Away, since last I saw you, dear ! 
And now that backward looks I take, 
I mourn them with a vague heart-ache. 
Not that I grieve at growing old, 
Not that the memories they hold 
Accuse me as an idler quite — 
I know I toiled from morn till night — 
But yet, so little I have wrought 
Worth a remembering, glad thought, 
Have left behind in passing on 
So few deeds lovable, ' well done.' " 

Thoughtful, I brushed the dead leaves by 

Beneath her feet, and for reply 

Lifted a sod of moss and mold. 

"Will you," I said, "this brown bosk hold 

And give it sun and dew, dear heart, 

For me, the while we are apart ? " 

When next I came the wintry snows 

Over our path in great drifts rose. 

She showed me, 'neath a crystal case. 

The bosk for which I had begged grace. 

" It looked so homely then, and dead. 

But since see how much life," she said, 

" Has sprung up, crying, ' I am here ! ' 

Daisy, anemone, and queer 

Green shoots from nameless roots ; more kinds, 

I do believe, than one oft finds 



THE SUNDAY SNOW-STORM. 49 

In rambling miles ! " — " Ah ! then indeed, 

Last summer's winds some unguessed seed 

Brought there, or birds dropped unaware 

From out their mouths a morsel rare. 

Not noticed and not missed. Now, long 

The summer winds, the birds of song 

Have flown far south ; yet now behold 

These reminiscences the mold 

Gives up. And so, dear heart, grieve not ; 

You know not all you give. Forgot, 

Unrecognized, maybe, by you 

Will be the truest goo^ you do. 

But where you pass w^aits — aye nathless, 

To take its own from your largess, 

The eager Silence that like Earth 

Rejects no seed as nothing worth. 

Then be content ; smile, spend and grant, 

Doing your best deeds ignorant. 

You may not pass that way again 

Your whole life long — and see, but then 

There will be for you sweet surprise 

All the more blest in Paradise." 



THE SUNDAY SNOW-STORM. 

It seems no more the same loud world without, 

The very light is soft ; 
So in cathedrals, pale and still and faded, 
It filters through the windows, draped and shaded 

And colorless, aloft. 



50 POEMS OF NATURE. 

And e'en as congregations risen, rev'rent, 

In the hush before the hymn, 
The Quaker woods stand silent in their places, 
All gray save glints between, like children's faces 

Where young hemlocks show dim. 

Against the church the noiseless snow-flakes flutter •, 

The people, entering, feel, 
As may the vines beneath the light snow's smoothing, 
A sense of safety, rest, and wondrous soothing, 

Over their spirits steal. 

O lovely screen of gently falling snow, 

Undazzling, yet so white ! 
How sweet thine art, whose grace doth intervene 
Tired eyes and all the glittering world between, 

To rest us from the sight ! 

It is the day of audience with the King ; 

We're poor and bare and low ; — 
As waited barren earth before the snow 
Let us wait patiently, and silent, know 

Our blessing, too, comes so. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



THE THOUGHT OF HER. 
A. B. B. 

I. 

At thought of her the tender tears 
Are troubled from their springs, 

Yet stir as weeps the April rain 
Her violets that brings, 

With health and healing in their wells, 
Not bitter, brackish things. 

ir. 

Only it is the getting used 

To have one more in Heaven ! 

It will seem strange and bleak at first, 
The daily closeness riven, 

And yearning love that wants her back 
So easily forgiven ! 

III. 
At thought of her the flickering smiles 
Quiver and glimmer too ; 



52 IN MEMORIAM. 

So gracious, beautiful and bright 
Her rounded life-time grew ! — 

Remembering all her ways and words, 
As faitliful lovers do, 

IV. 

How vividly they catch the light, 
Like embers fanned aglow — 

This quaintness or that archness shown 
Some day we only know ; 

An attitude, a look, a gem 
Worn then, a ribbon so; — 



A winsome air, a gentle tone, 

A kindliness she did. 
All fragrant with that sense of her 

That could no more be hid 
Than subtle lavender or rose 

Laid common things amid. 

VT. 

At thought of her the air grows pure 

And tremulous and sweet ; 
It was a vision perfected, 

A lovely life to meet. 
Brave woman, wife, and mother crowned 

And angel now, beside, 
The world is richer that she lived. 

And Heaven that she died. 



THE THOUGHT OF HER. $3 

VII. 

She died ; — and yet no need to say 

Her memory, — as though 
Of us, and our to-day she had 

Forevermore let go, 
Left us the past, and would henceforth 

No longer care or know. 

viir. 
Can she who here loved lavishly, 

Now only out of sight, 
Be colder, more forgetful grown 

There in God's full love-light ? 
Oh ! no, we will not count her out, 

Telling the rest good-night. 

IX. 

Then give we thanks, O Lord, for her 

Gone in Thy faith and fear. 
For good she wrought, for seed she sowed 

And left to ripen here. 
For all the honor, love, and peace 

That keeps her name so dear ; 

X. 

But most for this — a legacy 

Such as none other were. 
Potent to stay our hearts in stress, 

Uplift us lest we err. 
And beckon, beacon-like, to Heaven, 

— The blessed thouo:ht of her! 



54 IN MEMORIAM. 

E. M. C. 

" So He giveth His beloved sleep." 

While yet the dew lay on her life, 

A life so glad and new, 
While yet along its morning way 

The early violets grew. 

While yet she kept the sweet child-heart 

So trustful and so pure. 
Not heavy yet with doubts to solve, 

With sore wounds to endure, — 

While yet our care could keep her days 

Nest-warm from outer cold. 
About the tender, cherished one 

Enwrapping fold on fold, 

Before the path had grown grave-sown, 

And chilly with November, 
The path that now will ever be 

So flower-fair to remember, 

Before the slow, deep lines of care 
Had graved the forehead's white, 

Or lonely, bitter, scorching tears 
Had dimmed those eyes of light. 

So, even " So " the tender God 

Whose her soul was to keep. 
Reached through the sunshine down, and gave 

To His beloved, sleep. 



E. M. c. 55 

And we, (but God is pitiful ! ) 

We say, " Unjust ! Unjust ! " 
We would have kept her till she learned 

How sunshine turns to rust. 

Until she grew, as we have grown, 
Footsore with lengthened years ; 

Till she was worn with strifes and toils, 
And tired with griefs and fears, 

Till life had grown up-hill and hard, 

(As must be, soon or late ;) 
Oh ! heart, be brave ; say, had it been 

Kinder of God to wait ? 

He saw our jealous love for her 

Could not always prevail : 
'Gainst pain, and soil, and stain, sometime 

Its watch and ward must fail. 

And so, in His unthwarted love, 

He led her gently where 
There is no weariness to feel, 

No ache and loss to bear. 

Then heart, poor heart, be comforted; 

Since love is deep, so deep, 
Thank God that even " So, He gives 
To His beloved sleep." 
November, 1868. 



5^ IN MEMORIAM, 



"THE CRY OF THE HUMAN." 

"I am so tired, I am so tired! " — Charles Sumner, dying. 

Sometimes, along the busy street, 

With the glad sunlight shining sweet. 

While up and down the buyers meet. 

And quick steps fleet, and young hearts beat, 

And all in best attire are gay. 

Life seems awhile less oJd and gray, 

And, after all, a holiday. 

But yet, but yet, gift to forget 

The moaning to its rhythm set, 

Its crying, human undertone, 

The deaf or careless only own. 

It's like that wailing sound of sea 

That sighs beneath eternally. 

Though its proud waters marshaled be 

To ride, retreat, to march and shine. 

Row after row, line after line ! 

Whatever be life's splendor's show 

That aching pulse throbs still below. 

Ambition wearies of its goal. 

Successes pall, griefs eat the soul ; 

The singer's voice will choke ; the song 

Drop half-way in a sob, ere long : 

" I am so tired, I am so tired ! " 

The Lord bends down from heaven an ear 
Quick to discern, ready to hear ; 



THE CRY OF THE HUMAN, 5/ 

And in the mixt, tumultuous cries 
From all His murmurous world that rise 
Out of sore need, distress, despair, 
Appeal, entreaty, plaint or prayer, 
How frequent that refrain must beat 
Over and over at His feet. 
And on and on repeat, repeat, 
*' I am so tired, I am so tired ! " 

From hospitals where faded eyes 
Count out slow suns that set and rise, 
Ah ! yes, and many a castle hall, 
Or fairy bower, or festive wall, 
At twilight with the day's work done, 
Midnight, when lone the sands run low, 
Or at the height of noonday's glow. 
From rooms of toil and homes of ease 
Alike have echoed plaints like these, 
" I am so tired, I am so tired 1 " 

** I am so tired, I am so tired ! " 
He said who neared the solemn end, 
Great heart, good man and nation's friend. 
The long life's fight, the well-worn praise, 
The up-hill climb, the stony ways, 
The plans with high ambition fired, 
Honors deserved, prizes desired. 
This prince of statesmen, man of men, 
Dropped down and left as simply, then. 
As any weary child might say, 



58 IN MEMORIAM. 

Perplexed with work, and tired of play, 
" I am so tired, I am so tired ! " 

And as the mother, bending down. 
Lifts up the child that tugs her gown, 
So God at last all such doth rest 
With that divine exhaustion blest. 
Letting as now in His fit time 
The good-night for the weary chime, 
Releasing bells ring vesper rhyme, 
And saying, tenderly and deep, 
" Beloved, sleep ! " 



A MILESTONE. 

(June 6, 1S69.) 



I. 

And so through the sheen of the summer green. 

And so through the sun's rare gold 
We come where the glimmering way-mark gleams, 

And another mile is told. 
But vines enwreath it with close caress. 

There lamp-like blossoms press. 
Till the gray, mossed stone seems a shrine instead. 

All good souls pause and bless. 



Oh ! soft, yet bright is the warm rose-light. 
And fragrant the dome of air ; 



A MILESTONE. 59 

And singing ever the matron river, 

Near glideth smooth and fair. 
Sing on, sweet oriole tender and true. 

Sing out, " Dear Heart, well done ! " 
For the angels say of her to-day 

(I think), " A faithful one ! " 

III. 

She has seen the light of the milestones white 

Through darkness and the rain ; 
She has seen them through the thick, hot mists 

Of heaviness and pain, 
And yet, though she bore the march foot-sore, 

And yet, though along the track 
Some lost joys lay dropped on the way, 

She swerved not, turned not back. 



Till the twilight late, still the milestones wait, 

And silently urge on her feet. 
To number the days of her pilgrim ways. 

The miles to an end full sweet. 
For, looming a shadow upon the day 

Or a shimmer upon the night, 
Though darkened at whiles in winding defiles 

At last they shine in the light, 

V. 

The lights that a-glow in the windows show 
Where a Home and a Host await, 



6o IN MEMORIAM. 

Where the sandals worn, and the garb forlorn, 

Shall drop without the gate ! 
But a moment stay at this milestone gray, 

Dear Heart, dear saint of ours, 
While fond hands twine, as for holy shrine, 

Its wreath of June's young flowers. 



WHY STAND YE GAZING UP INTO HEAVEN? 
(SAMUEL BOWLES.) 

We know these words austere 

Command the troubled spirit well ; 
And we to-day who hear 

Them plain as when of old they fell, 
Like to the men of Galilee 

Would best turn silent; — go 
Our way to noble toil, as he 

Now vanished, did, below. 

But if, — but if one might 

Dare answer back the angel men. 
The full heart lifted quite 

Past fear as past redemption, — then 
Would we not make reply, — 

We gaze up after him because 
We dread to let our eye 

Down on that lone place where he was ! 



HE GIVETH SLEEP. 6 1 

We stand and gaze because 
* 
Here was no common passing ; here 

Was such a one as awes 

The faithless e'en to hope or fear 
An unseen Heaven vast 

Enough to furnish wider spheres 
Than this soul's scope, and last 

Sufficing, endless years. 

So can we help but gaze ? 

Wondering what is the high employ- 
Now his ; what friends ; what ways 

Transcendent to fill up his joy ; — 
Yet gaze as if to send 

One more word after him, or gain 
One look back from the friend, 

To whom our hearts unsaid remain ! 

And it may be not least 

Of ministries a hero leaves 
Upon his kind increast, 

That when he goes, who grieves 
Not only grieves, but thrilled 

And startled as bereaven 
Must lift dulled eyes that earth has filled, 

Must gaze up after him to Heaven. 



HE GIVETH SLEEP. 

The time of gifts had almost come, 
Kept in His name again 



62 IN MEMORIAM. 

Who captive leads captivity 

And giveth gifts to men. 
Full many hands, full many hearts, 

With loving zeal and thought 
Their tokens rich and rare had planned, 

Their tributes fair had wrought. 

There is one gift no man can get, 

No mortal can bestow ; 
It is not his to take, to give. 

Nor yet to time, although 
It may be Love's supremest prayer 

For those most dear. On sweep 
Of soundless wings that gift comes down, ■ 

God's gift ; — He giveth sleep. 

Not one high-beating heart whose wish 

That gift-day saw fulfilled 
Was raptured like the blessed heart 

Which on that day lay stilled ; 
The long road past, the waiting done, 

Pain merged in resting deep : — 
Oh ! none can choose and none can give 

Like Him who giveth sleep. 
Christmas Eve, 1879. 



S. N. B. 
(iSSi.) 

We needed her ; we fully knew 
All she could be, all she could do ; 



THE REQUIEM BELLS. 63 

So soon recalling her to dwell 
In Paradise, doeth He well ? 

He doeth well. He giveth her 

This honor, this great chance, Transfer ; 

Transfer, where the strong mind and will, 

Promoted, higher posts shall fill ; 

Her great capacities be brought 

'VMiere only they can as they ought 

Developed be ; where her delight 

In happiness shall have it's right. 

It will be but " a little while " 

Till she, with her own heartsome smile, 

Will prove to us 'twas so ; will say 

What glories with each added day 

To her by this Transfer befell, 

And how the best He wrought will tell 

Who doeth well, for her did well. 



THE REQUIEM BELLS. 

English cathedral bells toll for Garfield. The Elberon chapel bell tolled, 
but could scarcely be heard above the noise of the sea. 



They toll those deep cathedral bells 
Beyond Atlantic's ceaseless swells ; 
Toll, toll their measured, mournful knells, 
O'er our hope once so bright, now dim ! 



64 IN MEMORIAM. 

Like tears that answer, dropping slow 
In sympathy, a common woe, 
Those solemn bells throb in outgo, 
There half across the world from him. 



Why wilt thou not, O sounding sea, 

Forbear to toss so noisily ? 

Fain would we list those rev'rend bells 

That voice their tender thought and prayer 

Who pity us, O, hush, for there 

Tolls our near chapel bell ; we bear 

Our holy dead. Hush for the bells ! 

III. 

Vainly the sea, lashing the shore, 
Like Death, like Time, do we implore ; 
But, till the ocean is no more 
And Time's long restlessness is o'er, 
In hearts where love and honor dwell 
Still vibrant shall those far bells be. 
And men shall love, both sides the sea. 
To tell, in Christ's own charity 
How tolled those deep cathedral bells. 



RELIGIOUS POEMS. 



THE MASTER'S WORK-WOMEN. 

ADDRESSED TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE 
CHURCH. 



There stretches out before my gaze a canvas large 
and fair ; 

A perfect pattern, outlined by the Master's hand, 
lies there ; 

The fruit, the flowers, the light and shade, in won- 
drous mingled dyes. 

And intricate design, are spread beneath attractive 
eyes. 



They bend them to this broidery, they whom His 

gesture won 
To count obedience more sweet than idling in the 

sun; 
They cannot see the whole vast plan ; each only 

does what part 
The Master says, setting her stitch with child-like, 

docile heart. 



66 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 



Who holds the scroll ? for noiselessly, with firm, 

resistless touch, 
The finished part is rolled away, and, year by year, 

so much 
Of added pattern as He wills, the great designer 

lends ; 
Oh ! none, no, none may see the whole till the long 

labor ends. 

IV, 

I see them talk among themselves, the broiderers 
that still 

Address them to the task ; they name that conse- 
crated skill. 

That strength of courage, that high faith to toil and 
persevere. 

Which first a few brought to the work — O blessed 
names and dear ! 

V. 

I see them speak most lovingly, and with a tender 

awe 
Of others in whose stint, nigh done, their eyes can 

see no flaw ; 
The tendrils wrought with life-long pains almost 

transfigured show ; 
Only a few more stitches now ; then these shall rise 

and go, 
And from their labors rest ; their works do follow 

them, we know? 



THE master's work-women. 6/ 

VI. 

And, of the curious that scan the masterpiece, some 

throw 
A careless look, some scoff ; some smile ; some 

marvel as they go ; 
Look nearer ; this is tapestry that bears a closer ken, 
And teaches deeper things than all the studied arts 

of men. 



Behold this leaf, this single leaf, half hidden under- 
neath 

The growth luxuriant of embossed garlanding and 
wreath ; 

But little time she had who wrought this humble 
part ; yet would 

Upon it lavish all her love, and hath done what she 
could, 

viir. 

'Neath hands that faltered not, behold, what fault- 
less sprays, along 

The rich breadths lie ! — But here, a place picked 
out ; — here, stitches wrong. 

Ah, well ! — yet tears of penitence dropped there ; 
the dear Lord shows 

To his work-women alchemy most heayenly in those. 

IX. 

Note now, this branch begun. How exquisite its 
jrrace, how well 



68 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Wrought out at first ! Then, on the worker's hand 

at length there fell 
A weariness that made her sigh, half fretful, "Let 

me rest " — 
She did not heed the Teacher's gentle warning, " Is 

it best ? " 



Long rest she took ; and long with patience He 

awaited her 
Who kept her place, though many better fit to fill it 

were ; 
At last with one sharp word He called her back : 
He would not see her slothful slumber utterly her 

loss and ruin be. 



Wakened indeed, she takes the threads once more, 

startled and sore ; 
Alas ! how changed that harmony of hues, her pride 

before ! 
They faded while she slept — poor broiderer! why 

did'st thou choose 
Such time for sleep ? This faded work none but thy 

Lord could use. 

XII. 

Not with His dearest looks of love, not His best 

words of praise, 
The Master looks on difficult or showy parts always; 



THE master's work-women. 69 

Not always to the capable, the fearless and the fleet 
He speaks His "well clone," for He adds "thou 
faithful " when 'tis meet. 

XIII. 

How grander with increasing time the noble pattern 

wide. 
And wider still its boughs throw out and spread on 

ev'ry side ! 
How, to fulfil its broadening scope that ever plainer 

stands, 
Come loving toilers more and more with ready 

hearts and hands ! 

XIV. 

The Master looks ; He counts you o'er ; He notes 

you each to-day 
Who to His church are pledged ; to aid all willing 

women may ; 
Then, courage ! though a heavy heart sometimes to 

toil you bear, — 
Courage ! though anxious and perplext ; courage ! 

though small thy share, 
" * Content ' to fill the lowest place, and think of 

Jesus there." 

XV. 

Can anything a woman's heart touch with such sure 

appeal 
As being needed ? — Then fail not, O woman heart ! 

to feel 



70 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

That now the Master wistfully your handiwork doth 

seek, 
As though He needed you: — canst fail entreaties 

made so meek ? 

XVI. 

He needs not all to work alike ; for each one's way 

He'll care ; 
There is no woman so unskilled but she can help 

somewhere ; 
Ye workers of the buds give them ; ye who do leaf 

and stem 
Fear not but in the mighty whole the Lord hath 

need of them. 

XVII. 

Fear but one thing ; that when at last ye see that 

mighty whole 
Before the angels, before men, unroll a finished 

scroll, 
Ye miss some flower or leaf left out that might have 

been your task, 
And cry, " I disappointed Him ; in vain I let Him 

ask." 



THE TIE THAT BINDS. 

" No more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and 
of the household of God." 

The gentle Sister in quiet ward three. 
As distant clocks tolled midnight heavily, 



THE TIE THAT BINDS. 7I 

Noted a patient, restless sigh and stir ; 

But, half across the floor she paused. Of 

Her unconscious, the sick man tried to sing 

An old psalm in his sleep, that quivering 

Rose, sank and dropped midway ; she only caught 

"How sweet the name" — yet with such meaning 

fraught 
Those few, faint words that she no stranger spoke, 
When with a start and groan the sleeper woke. 

" You are in pain ? " she said, and with skilled touch 

Bathed the hot head ; " Not that, not that so much ; 

I dreamed, I think, of home, and singing air 

To the old tunes we used of Sundays there. 

It's the more hard to wake a stranger here, 

Stranger and foreigner, with not one near 

Of kin or countryman." 

The sick man's eyes. 

Dull and distressed looked up. By love made wise, 

The Sister softly answered, " Friend, I'm fain 

To tell you tales, as to a child in pain. 

" A foundling babe, adopted by a great 
And worthy lord, arrived at man's estate. 
Found quenchless yearnings in himself arise 
To know what country his had been ; what ties 
Of parentage. At last his lord's command 
Sent him commissioned forth to a far land, 
And, pondering still his missing name and race, 
He reached on errands grave the destined place. 



72 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

" ' Hail, fellow-citizen ! ' a laborer cried, 

And carelessly brushed by. The stranger sighed, 

' Whose fellow-citizen am I ? how glad 

Were I with e'en this laborer's kinship had ! ' 

* Hail, fellow-citizen ! ' courteous, grave. 
Spake one of rev'rend mien across the pave. 

* Am I indeed so like these people then ? ' 
The stranger wondered, startled much again. 
But when, unquestioning, in shop and street 
They called him fellow-citizen, a sweet, 
Half-frightened hope grew stronger in his mind, 
His nationality here, now, to lind. 

At last kind chance confirmed the hope past doubt. 

Then, while he wrought his lord's commission out, 

How light his added task along the way 

Through summer noontides and through winter day. 

Where'er he went, his countrymen and kin 

To learn of and discover. For within 

No single place his wide-spread, noble folk 

Abode. He knew not when a morning broke 

What new friend he might find ere night, or where 

The bond of lineage he traced might bear 

His footsteps. Sometimes in castles came 

He unawares upon a lord whose name 

Showed him of like descent, who glad contest 

The tie, and entertained with all his best 

This kinsman guest ; sometimes 'neath humblest 

roof 
The same ' Hail fellow-citizen ! ' brought proof 
Of close alliance. 
So, always cheered and fed 



JESUS, MY SUN, MY LIFE, MY LIGHT. 73 

The traveler, with thankful spirit said, 

' Now, what a Master mine is ! 'Tis well worth 

On errands for Him wand'ring through the earth, 

Else truly I could never e'en begin 

To know my countrymen and next of kin. 

Thus eased forevermore lonely regret, 

In families the solitary set.' 

Ah, friend ! e'en so thy speech betrayeth thee, 

(She ended), fellow-citizen to be ; 

Thou shalt not lack for kin and countrymen : — 

Related by a Name most royal when 

One seeks for kinsfolk verily he finds ; 

Blest is the tie that binds ! " 



JESUS, MY SUN, MY LIFE, MY LIGHT. 

Jesus, my Sun, my Life, my Light, 

Arise and shine 
Into this close and shady life. 

This life of mine, 

This life that lies so low and damp, 

And yet, may be 
Made pure and high, made golden-glad, 

Dear Lord, in Thee. 

Shine in this soul that like a child 

Cries in the dark ! 
Lonely and shivering and cold, 

I wait, I hark ! 



74 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

I wait for Thy rejoicing beams, 

Thy presence dear, 
That shall withdraw all dread and pain, 

All doubt and fear ; 

That shall give perfectness of strength. 

Beauty and power. 
Thine own, O Christ ! wherewith to meet 

Each trying hour ; 

That shall give all of growth and gain 

I, helpless, need ; 
That shall my famished, fevered heart 

With fulness feed. 

Jesus, my Sun, my Life, my Light, 

Arise and shine ! 
Lowly and penitent I wait 

Thy light divine. 
Sunday, June 2, 1867. 



STRAIT AND NARROW. 

I SAW one who turned at a warning word. 

And owned, " The saying is true ; 
There is no continuing city here ; 

I will seek that, far and new. 
Which hath foundations, and dureth for aye, 

As with my might I've stri\-en 
For the crumbling earth and its fleeting gains, 

Now will I strive for heaven." 



STRAIT AND NARROW. 75 

With that he came fast to the Wicket Gate, 

And found it a humble gate, 
Not a royal arch as for conquerors, 

But lowly, and plain and strait. 
A cobweb hung even across the latch. 

Quivering light in the wind, 
For narrow and strait is the way of life, 

And so few there be that find. 

When he stood erect at the lowly gate 

And knocked, admittance to win, 
A voice said, " Except as a little child 

None ever can enter in." 
Then he waited long before next he knocked. 

Till saying, " So be it then," 
He stooped to be low as a little child 

And timidly knocked again. 

Freely the gate swinging open stood wide ; 

Still not yet he entered in 
For fain he as well had carried and kept 

Some load of long-treasured sin, 
Some righteousness Self had carefully wrought, 

Some praise that Self yet might win ; 
And the open gate was by far too strait 

Thus cumbered to let him in. 

The reckoning balanced, he counted loss 

All else he could have or do, 
And strijoped of all trappings, a naked soul. 

With empty hands pressed he through, 



^6 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

On the King's highway where the holy steps 

Of the King himself have been, 
Through the self-same gate that He hath ordained, 

Entering, entering in ! 

And last, far across the thick river damps, 

I saw a great gate ajar, 
All glorious garnished with precious stones, 

And shining like any star. 
With bright watching faces that looked out glad, 

While echoes of music rang 
So raptured that never a mortal ear 

Could cojDy the song they sang. 

I saw the pilgrim pass joyous beyond, 

Trembling and afraid no more ; 
So one might cross to the household within 

A sweet home's familiar door. 
What weighed the journey's short weariness then, 

Or the way-side warfare's din ? 
Through the gate to the City Eternal 

He had entered, entered in. 

But before the darkness closed in once more 

I looked for the Wicket Gate ; 
I marked it lying just over against. 

Lowly, and humble, and strait. 
And still a cobweb across the latch hung. 

Quivering light in the wind, 
For narrow and strait is the way of life. 

And so few there be that find. 



BELLS OF CHRISTMAS MORNING. // 

BELLS OF CHRISTMAS MORNING. 

In the night I heard them cr)-ing, 
Falling into mournful sighing, 
Answering with faint replying, 

" Lo ! these nineteen hundred years 
We have sung at sweet Christ-tide, 
Throwing out our liope world-wide. 

Peace ! Peace ! O Earth that hears ! 

"Peace! Peace ! beneath the star 
That, lamp-like, guides afar 

Those eastward pilgrims gray ! 
Gifted, empowered as never were. 
Choice balsams of the fir. 
Their frankincense and myrrh, 
Poured at the feet of her 
Who holds the wondrous Child. 
Down through ages dark and wild, 
The ragged wounds of strife 
With very balm of life 

Shall heal, and shall allay. 

" Good-will ! good-will ! we cried : 
No more of wrath or pride 
Or traffic's noisy cumber 
To break the gentle slumber 

Of this new-born Babe-King. 
Brothers beside the manger. 
Know not outcast nor stranger. 

But cordial right hand bring:. 



78 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

" Yet these nineteen hundred years 
We aloft have seen deaf ears 
Turned to widows', orphans' tears ; 
We have seen the heart-sick fears 

Of the scorned and desolate ! 
We have seen the tyrant's heel 
Grind warm flesh beneath its steel ; 
We have seen the starving die, 
And the brother standing by 
Show no pity in his eye ; 

Friend fail friend and mate stab mate. 
We this voice are weary lifting 
O'er the masses shiftins:, driftinof. 
That but spurn the royal gifting." 



On the air I caught the echo 

Of their grieving, sad and hollow. 

While they waited, watchmen olden, 
I looked down with solemn sorrow, 
I looked up some cheer to borrow 
For the yet delayed to-morrow, 

Where the Eastern star hune: golden. 



'O to^ 



All the night I sat a-wondering; 
All the night I sat a-pondering; 
But when dawn's white rose made room, 
Budding mutely through the gloom, 
I, the sexton, rose up cheerful, 
And to all the weak and tearful 
Bade the bells their message carry, 
On their errand make no tarr)'. 



TWO TOILERS. 79 

For I said : " Strike true ! strike true ! 
So men yet shall learn of you 
To sing in tune upon your key. 
And, though no list'ning ear should be, 
Still at the glory of the news 
Can ye joyful voice refuse ? 
Oh, for its beauty, for its grace, 
Dance and sing, each in his place ! " 

They together all cried out. 
With a loud, ecstatic shout, 

And the rapture of their lay 
Thrilled through dreams of restless sleepers, 
Thrilled through watch of vigil-keepers, 
Checked the tear of many a weeper. 
Bringing many a purer, deeper 

Greeting to the Lord's Birth-day : 

" Peace ! Good-will ! the Prince now born 
Comes unto the lost, forlorn. 

Leaves that royal house, the King's, 
Leaves its choirs of holy rest. 
Leaves his guests, the pure, the blest, 
And for our need doth condescend 
A remedy divine to lend ; 

Wake Earth, O wake and sing ! " 



TWO TOILERS. 

" Lady, sitting in silken gear. 
Up in your chamber height, 



80 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Lay sunshine in a golden web 

Across your floor to-night ? 
For sure your threads were all of gold, 

I saw their glimmer fall 
Through your fingers, and cast a gleam 

Upon your pictured wall." 

" Alas ! but heavy hearted still, 

I see along the West, 
Day's white sail vanish dreamily 

Over the darkness' crest. 
For scant, and poor, the freight all told 

I have sent out therein ; 
Though rich, and full, and splendid heaped, 

I hoped it would have been. 

" For clumsy weaving tarnished oft 

The gleaming treasure gold ; 
And my best arts but left it there 

Faded, and dull, and old. 
Sometimes tears dimmed my vision, so 

I only could work slow ; 
Or the tears dropping rusted sore 

The burnished, yellow glow. 

" Oh ! may we not with weaiy eyes, 
Friend, fold our hands and weep. 

When it is growing late for work, 
And almost time to sleep ? 

For we are but vain toilers all. 
Each in his empty way ; 



TWO TOILERS. 

And life's best gold is set with gloom, 
And Heaven's far away." 

" Toiler, sitting in humble garb, 

Down in your shady room, 
Patient have I seen you bending 

Over your busy loom ; 
I have caught no sheen of golden, 

Glinting, glad and gay — 
Naught for your daily store to weave, 

But dull and quiet gray. 

" Toiler, like a warm wing-shelter 

Comes darkness brooding o'er ; 
Resting in the soothing shadow. 

Sit now within thy door ; 
Tell me how through the light's delay 

You wove your stint to-day. 
Out of that gloomy, shady store. 

Your dim and dusky gray ? " 

" God cares to have, (I guess not why, 

And yet so I believe) 
In His fair world — the dusty web 

That even spiders weave. 
There must be reason then to think 

He needs the poor, pale gray ; 
And so I weave it carefully, 

And simply trust He may. 

*' And sometime in a glad surprise, 
As if by chance inrolled. 



8i 



82 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Shining from out the dusk I find 

Even a thread of gold. 
How richly forth it shines ere while 

Set in my homely woof ; 
And like a crown glows out so grand 

Beneath my humble roof ! 

" I am content to fold my hands, 

Now, at the still night-fall ; 
God sets no soul to work for naught. 

Nor cheats one of us all 
With wasted toil ; we work His will 

Each in his dif'rent way ; 
And e'en life's gray has in it gold, 

Nor is Heav'n far away." 



BARTIMEUS. 



I HEARD the tramping feet of multitudes 

There, where I sat and begged from out the pleni- 
tude 

Of Scribe and Pharisee some crumbs of piteous 
dole ; 

I heard — a throbbing torture shook my soul. 

" O God ! it is too dreadful, shut from any vision 
By bars of iron darkness to a strong prison. 



BARTIMEUS. 8^ 

Thus to sit, Strained with listening, hearkening to 

these feet 
That beat, beat, beat all clay upon the echoing 

street ! 

" Meek lashes never lifting from my cheek, 
To listen, listen steps of strong or weak ! 
It grows, to tortured sense, a flail so sore, 
Might seem they trod my living flesh, nor hurt me 
more ! " 

I heard the tramping, eager multitude, 

Yet marked but murmurous swell ; no outcry rude ; 

There was some low voice, reverent, when I asked 

them why : 
" Jesus of Nazareth, is it, passeth by." 

Then all my being leaped wdth raptured hope. 

As if some soul that passed afraid, found Heaven 

ope : — 
Then all my being anguished for one word — • 
And would not stop to doubt, and 7.voidd be heard. 

Quick ! quick ! — I cried aloud, nor could delay, 
Cared not for clamor, fain tc bid me stay. 
The world seemed sole, between this Man and me. 
Beggar and blind was I, — Lord and Physician he. 

O, the felt pathos of the unseen look ! 

O, gracious lovingness the low voice took ! 

" What ivilt tJwic 1 " — and I prayed my prayer. 

At His feet then. He knows my heart brake there ! 

Brooklyn, March 3, 1S70. 



84 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 



THE HIDDEN COMFORTER. 

COMPLAINT. 

I WONDER why, 
When, by my loneliness made restless, I 
Stumble on without aim it seems, struck blind 
And wildered, leaving some dear grave behind. 
That I no comfort find ; that I but hear 
Those who speak round me with a dulled, sick ear, 
And cannot see nor feel the One from Whom 
We've hope, they say, even beside the tomb. 
Oh ! if indeed, Christ helps and succors such, 
Why is He hid when I need Him so much ? 



I wonder why 
When heart-sick, disappointed, heavily. 
Two men bereaven, late one dreary day. 
Towards Emmaus plodded on their dusty way, 
Their Lord, who came so close to them and 

talked. 
Hid his identity, and as they walked 
Kept back the knowledge that should change their 

grief 
To all the rapture of supreme relief. 
And make their doubting hearts unearthly glad 
When they should know what company they had. 

I think we cannot help but wonder why — 
Blame us not. Master, for that wistful sigh ! — 



THE HIDDEN COMFORTER. 85 

And 3'et, we know, of old, their Master was 
Beside them, and not there the less because 
The mourners, slow of vision, did not know 
Till afterwards ; somehow He chose it so. 
Dear soul, then no more sadly needest thou 
Doubt the same Comforter is near thee now, 
And though it seems so strange and hard to thee 
That He should hidden from perception be. 
Hush ! do not try 
Just yet to find out why. 

I wonder why 
We fear ; think'st thou that Jesus even yet 
His tears for Lazarus can and doth forget ? 
While He remembers them will He e'er leave 
A mourner of us all alone to grieve ? 
Despair not even at thine own despair, 
Or the chill blank and absence ev'rywhere, 
For One who understands is near, does know. 
As you walk and are sad He seeks you most. 
For what would they at last have missed or lost 
That walk which at the first was hard to bear ? 
So when He makes thee (as He will), aware 
How close He is, dear soul, thou'It not complain 
He thee unreasonably kept in pain, 
Nor say He was mistakenly too slow 
In letting thee the hid Companion know, 
Nor longer wonder why. 



RELIGIOUS POEMS. 



IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE 
SHALL BE. 

" I TREMBLE at the thought of Heaven," 

She said. He wondered why. 
" At Heaven ? whose glories make us glad, 

And more than glad to die ? " 
He asked her, puzzled, half-displeased. 

Her dreamy eyes along 
The distant hills looked forth ; " I know," 

She said, " the raptured song 
That holy souls have tried to make 

Of Heaven ; how they say 
' Thou hast no shore, fair oce3.n, 

Thou hast no time, bright day ; 
With jasper glow thy bulwarks, 

Thy streets with emeralds blaze, 
The sardius and the topaz 

Unite in thee their rays,' — 
I know — 
But I, who am no saint inspired, 

But I, who never had 
More than a common life to live, 

Nor much to make me glad. 
Nor grand experiences that dig 

Deep channels in the soul. 
How shall I bear this Heaven's vast 

Ecstatic, perfect whole ? 
Perfection ? I cannot conceive 

Perfection, and I fear, 



WHAT WE SHALL BE. 8/ 

You see, I could not take it in. 

Because, I'm so used here 
To tempered pleasures and small flaws 

In all my dearest things, 
That to its full capacity 

Joy in me never swings. 
What if the splendid, perfect Heaven 

Found me thus lacking ; such 
I could not comprehend it all. 

And could not bear so much ? 
Like this, maybe : a man born deaf 

Hears suddenly ; and, lo. 
The first breath in the world of sound 

His opened ears shall know, 
Comes thrilling from an orchestra ; — 

Perfect ? Oh, yes ! — and yet. 
The man might swoon beneath the shock 

His startled nerves have met, — 
I am afraid." 
" I thank you for that word," he said ; 

" There is another sense ; 
We miss it (so I think) always 

Until we do go hence. 
We know there is another power 
Though not whether its tense 
Is that we 7nig/if have or shall have . 
This unknovni sense, from whence 
We hope as great things, surely, 

As the kitten ten days old. 
When her blind eyes, finding their use, 
To light delayed, unfold. 



S8 RELIGIOUS POEMS, 

And so perhaps this dormant sense, 

Not needed until then, 
May be the very thing vouchsafed 

To bear the glory, when 
The righteous in the kingdom shine, 

And He in garments white 
Sits on the throne whom none can see 

And live to bear the sight. 
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, 

Those things he doth prepare, 
Perhaps because, until that sense. 

The look they could not bear. 
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard — 

Oh, no ! not yet, not yet, — 
But rest ; but wait ; anticipate ; 

And, waiting, do not let 
Your heart be troubled ! Your man, deaf. 

Not at the sound would start 
And marvel, but the new-found sense. 

The faculty, his heart 
Would fill with joy unspeakable, 

And on its own strong wings 
He would be borne above himself, 

Above all lesser things. 
The hosiDitality of Heaven 

Will not make earth's mistakes. 
When a tired, timid woman, strange. 

Upon that threshold wakes, 
It will not be with blare of full 

Processionals they meet 
And honor her. With tender touch, 



THE BESETTING SIN. 89 

Tones very low and sweet, 
Ways home-like she can understand, 

As there before she'd been, 
I think they will come softly forth 

And silent lead her in, — 
And lead her in, to see the face 

That anywhere would be 
The one thing making Heaven home, 

Heaven to you, to me." 



THE BESETTING SIN. 

[Peter said unto Jesus, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me 
and I forgive him ? Till seven times ? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto 
thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven.] 

Brethren, I ain't a saint, but the Lord knows I 

want to be good ! 
I couldn't have said that once, nor had any thought 

that I should ; 
It's somethin' a man can't tell, it's somethin' spoke 

down into him. 
This change that come to me, brethren, and filled 

my heart to the brim. 

When I found 'twas true about Him, true about his 

lovin' me, 
Lovin' me honest, airnest, — oh, think on't ! me jest 

as I be ! — 



90 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Well, I did want, if I could, to please him, by ttyin' 

my best 
To be all he'd like to have me, and just lettin' go 

the rest. 



So I tried ; — 'twas poor! — but I tried. And breth- 
ren, if anythin' 

Ever stuck like a pison weed it was that besettin' 
sin! 

If it hadn't been for that ! When I'd think 'twas 
rooted out 

Time an' agin springin' up, sarsy, to put me sore 
about. 

I got so ashamed and sore, and I felt so tired out 

and beat, 
That I said, " It's mean to come beggin' always 

about His feet 
Like a coward, crouchin' dog that knows he's ben 

a doin' wrong ; " 
So I left off sayin' prayers for a little while along. 

It grew so I couldn't bear it. The Lord took pity 

on me 
And sent — no sign nor wonder, but enough to make 

me see. 
The minister read in church on how many times to 

forgive ; 
It flashed through me in a minute — I began again 

to live. 



THE BESETTING SIN. 9I 

So this is the kind of Master we have, this the way 
that He 

Would past all reason have us forgive, keep for- 
givin', thinks me ; 

What ! o'er and o'er the one same thing, seventy- 
times in a day ? 

As oft in the day as the sinner, of us " Forgive ! " 
will pray. 

And what can our paltry seven, what can our long 
suff'rin' be 

Beside the Lord that's never done forbearin' infi- 
nitely ? 

Seventy upon seven times — in God, what may that 
mean f 

Has patience e'er the end of that multiplication 
seen ? 

Don't it sound so ? I didn't doubt it ; I cried out 

" Forgive ! " right there ; 
When we can't look God in the face, still he tires 

not of our prayer ; 
It seems too good to be true ; do you think, though, 

I've got it right ? 
If I have it makes life seem hopeful, it makes my 

heart beat light. 

As I said, I want to be good, and to tr)- to conquer 

all 
My evil ways. When, still, by this one so easy sin 

I fall 



92 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Till I am shamefaced o'er and o'er, if I jest as oft 

may cry, 
" Forgive ! " and be forgiven — Thank God ! — I'll 

try until I die. 



THE KING'S GARDEN. 

One lovely day in every seven 

We walk in the King's garden ; 
From opening of the eastern gate 
Till shuts the western gate we wait 
And walk in the King's garden. 

We leave the looms, the noise, the whirl, 

The fabrics we are weaving : 
We leave the needle in its seam, 
Idle, untouched, to lie and gleam, 

W^e jDlowing leave, or sheaving. 

We bring within it haggard eyes 

Sometimes, and wear)^ faces 
And hands toil-worn, and torn and brown — 
Some angel coming unseen down, 

These surface-marks erases. 

We bring within it sorrowing souls ; 

We bring in, each, his cross : 
Some weights of care that press and cling, 
And some mournful foreshadowing 

Of coming dearth and loss. 



NOT AS THE WORLD GIVETH. 93 

But oh ! the gracious King 

\Mio meets and helps us here ! 
Where burdens chafe, He lifts : 
Witli clearer sight He gifts 

To banish faithless fear. 

How tender bends the sky above 

This garden of our King ! 
How snowy-pure the blossoms blow, 
What healing fruits do thereon grow, 

What chorals the birds sing ! 

O sweet, sweet garden of the King ! 

We love, we cherish thee ! 
We leave without, defiling things ; 
Tlie soul of her great Sovereign sings ! 

From earth-chains would be free : 

And in the quiet joys to dream 

Of that fair, waiting shore 
Where soon, at her Beloved's side 
Blest above thought, she shall abide, 

Abide forevermore. 



NOT AS THE WORLD GIVETH. 
I. 

The woman sat by and spun 
From dawn till the day was done. 
With a red rose in her hair ; 
She knew she was blithe and fair, 



94 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

She knew she had strength and j'outh, 

But nothing she had, in sooth, 

Brought with its subtle grace 

The eager light to her face, 

The expectancy to her eyes. 

" I look for some dear surprise. 

Some word of the Lord come true 

In a wondrous rapture new," 

She sang, as she gazed away 

Through her crystal pane each day, 

" For surely I must believe 

That the good Lord would not leave 

Souls made to live forever. 

To stay here years and never 

Guess by some token given 

What He can mean by Heaven ; 

It will then be all so new, 

How can we know what to do 

Unless we have here some clue ? 

Glorious promises wide 

He makes to His own, beside," 

She said, so half heard by her 

The terms of the promise were. 



But while she thus dreamed and spun. 

Day, day after day begun ; 

While she still dreamed on and spun, 

Day, day after day was done. 

The swifter she bravely wrought. 

For smiling, the while she thought 



NOT AS THE WORLD GIVETH. 95 

Of that Guest in royal guise, 
And how in her best she'd rise 
To lead him the tlireshold o'er, 
Flinging wide the carven door. 
Not the door by which she sped 
To the sick child^s lonely bed ; 
Not the gate that nearest led 
To the widow's house ; instead 
Her stateliest, hard to ope 
To ardors even of hope ; 
If long it were kept unstirred. 
Through delays of joy deferred ; 
So anon she left the loom 
Alone in the shady room, 
To tug at the bars — all dust. 
To pull at the lock — all rust. 

Would it be by morning light ? 
Would it be at noon's warm height ? 
The year must be bright and gay, 
The birds keeping holiday ; 
Before such coming as this 
Nothing must be amiss — 
Yet the sunshine 'gainst the shade 
Briefer and briefer stayed ; 
The woodbine above the door 
Flamed fate, and then flamed no more. 
" O my Guest ! then must it be 
Thy feet never cross to me 
To interpret Heaven, while 
Here I bide in long exile ? " 



96 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Still the world went by, went by, 
And no step, no step drew nigh. 



The woman sat by and spun, 

And her stint was nearly done ; 

Through the glass she watched no more, 

And now even grief was o'er. 

For patience replaced the pain 

That had wept " In vain, in vain ! " 

White was her hair; she was old ; 

Late now was the year and cold ; 

But waiting upon her face 

Had wrought a wonderful grace, 

Like light from some higher place. 

Through her door, despised and poor, 
At dusk a step on the floor 
She thought made a gentle stir ; 
" The widow would talk with her, 
Or the sick child send, may be," 
And she scarce looked up to see, 
Expecting glad news no more, 
Setting naught by that low door ; 
But the splendor thrilled her through, 
And her dreams at last were true. 
" Oh ! I knew," she cried, " I knew 
It must be right to believe 
That the good Lord would not leave 
Souls made to live forever. 
To stay here so, and never 



A TESTIMONY. 9/ 

Guess by a token given 

What He can mean by Heaven ! 

Is it not Thy very will 
The messenger shall fulfill 
Now, dear Lord, upon my head 
The promises Thou hast said ? " 
A voice majestic she heard : 
" It shall be fulfilled, my word, 
And that I said shall increase — • 
I said, ' I will give you Peace.' " 



A TESTIMONY 



O Friend ! who art doubting, and mistrusting the 

light 
E'en while thou art passionately praying for sight, 
Who art groping about with wild, sorely-bruised 

hands. 
And "cannot understand," you say; — God under- 
stands ! 
Your despair the most intricate He'll yet make clear, 
Will " lighten your darkness," disperse every fear, 
Create your whole tired-out life and spent soul anew; 
He has done it for me ; He will do it for you, 

O Friend ! who art standing all perplext in thy way. 
Knowing not how to turn, full of helpless dismay 



98 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

That thy road seems cut off both behind and be- 
fore, 

God has planned for you ready some wide-open 
door 

That He knows all about, though you have not the 
clue ; 

He will guide you as safely on as though you knew : 

You will wonder to find all His words coming true ; 

He has done it for me ; He will do it for you. 

Friend who sharply art suffering, and by the smart 
Of the rod art bewildered, until thy own heart 
Makes strange-sounding replies, like a traitorous 

thing, 
And applies to thy wounds but a more caustic sting, 
Now the Lord shall fight for you and you shall be 

still ; 
At rest He'll enfold you, deep within His will ; 
Will uplift you and bear you victorious through ; 
He has done it for me ; He will do it for you. 

It is easy for God, it is easy for Him 
To reveal so His glory, though our eyes are dim, 
Out of midnight confusion, and chaos that we 
Would call ruin, evokes He love, light, liberty ; 
He is, then, at no loss for one soul that doth share 
In its weakness that might by abiding His care, 
And His might will be gentle to you as the dew; 
He has done it for me ; He will do it for you. 



GONE TO GROW UP IN HEAVEN. 99 



GONE TO GROW UP IN HEAVEN. 

Not linked with one harder name than this 

Let their sweet names be given ; 
Say only that they have gone in peace 

Gone to grow up in Heaven. 
Not easily girl-children mature 

To be perfect women here ; 
Through many a hurt they learn their part, 

And many a secret tear ; 
Their wisest guides can make sore mistakes, 

Even while they guide they fear ; 
But there how gloriously they teach. 

How wondrously they'll rear, 
Who joyed in their many mansions o'er 

These pupils, as they drew near. 
Summoned in by the Lord of the place. 

Because he held than so dear. 
We had here their sunny childhood full 

Of the beautiful and free 
As Love could render it. Love canst now 

For their sakes still stronger be. 
A mother will often smile down brave, 

Her exiled and aching heart. 
And from her children in distant lands 

Consent to be long apart. 
That they high knowledge may gain, and be 

Best trained in all costly lore • 
Dear mother-heart, by thy lonesome grief, 

The Master must mean no more. 



lOO RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

'Tis only to Heav'nly schools He takes 

These little ones you so miss, 
To make them in that fair realm, what they 

Could never quite be in this. 
So, although your heavy days move slow, 

Oh ! reckon how each doth bring 
New powers to them, new gifts, new joys, 

New strength of unwearied wing. 
And every hour enriches them 

By some added, precious thing ; 
Yes, night and day let the fancies shape 

Into hopes more clear and true 
Of the skilled ways in which angels teach, 

And the children, what they do, 
What characters full of strength they make, 

What graces divine grow to. 
Oh ! look at thyself not solely then 

As stricken and bereaven. 
But think how lovely, how safe, your girls 

Are growing up in Heaven ! 



HEARTSEASE. 



Hush, darling, in this hour's heart-break ; 
Oh ! cry not out with pain, and take 
Life's name in vain, and bitter make 
A mock of what it is to live. 
Saying, " Life has not that to give 
Can make me that I am forgive ! " 



HEARTSEASE. lOI 

Peace, darling, peace ; for let us be 
At least wise as when, children, we 
Stopped tears at fairy tales : hear me : — ■ 

I know not where the beds of heartsease grow, 

Yet they be somewhere, I undoubting know, 

Across me so at whiles their perfumes blow. 

It is not when sweet hopes laugh out with bloom, 

At sunny morning, in some favorite room 

I scent the heartsease, but through twilight gloom. 

Or at high noon after a long, rough road 
While still I bear along my weary load 
Whose iron presses, yet doth not corrode — 

Ethereal faint, then o'er my soul opprest 
Blows tenderly that breath of comfort blest, 
And changes all the air, and bids me rest. 

Therefore I know that beds of heartsease grow, 
And herbs of healing for us all ; and so 
There must be love and providence, although 
As yet we do not see them where we go. 

So I'll believe the best I can of life, 
Believe it has a balm after the knife. 
Believe in heart's ease mingling with the strife 
That else with heartlessness alone were rife. 

And while I wait those heartsease beds to see, 
The more that with some spirit ministry 



I02 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Their handling without hands doth comfort me, 
I dream on what their native place must be, 

Making it fairer than our fairest Mays 
With best of purple nights, of golden days ; 
Thus to beguile all present barren ways. 



OUT IN THE RAIN. 

Would you know, if you met in the street, 
Do you think, God's messenger fleet, 
Bearing His word to some needy soul. 
For lifting or making it whole ? 

Did you know him ? the late autumn rain 
Beat and throbbed like slow pulses of pain. 
And hushed as a close sick-room's air 
Windy forest and harvest-field bare. 

He had small, dusty feet, plump and brown, 
Ragged straw for an aureole crown. 
Wilful curls of the loveliest hair. 
White brow gleaming childish and fair. 

And no harm if you smiled, dear, I know, 
At the parasol held up, as though 
Safe and sober, the little wise head 
Were so consciously well-bestead. 



\ 

"AND STOOD AT HIS FEET, WEEPING." IO3 

Had some freak of the lightning been sent 
To turn it so battered and rent ? — 
Lo ! this was the minister quaint, 
No hero, philosopher, saint. 

But the message went safe where 'twas sent, 
For a heart under faithless care bent 
Paused to look where the little child led, 
And clearly and legibly read : 

Thou who fearest the Lord's gracious rains, 
Oh ! what if thy plans and thy pains 
Under which thou wouldst deem safe to rest 
Are but leaky umbrellas at best .-' 

With what infinite toil you would spread 
Protective devices o'erhead ! 
Perhaps at the sight, angels may 
Smile gently, as you did to-day ; 

Since they know that our wisest schemes gain 
For us oft but complacency vain ; 
Yet that God, when they fail, the dark day, 
Will take care of us all His own way. 



"AND STOOD AT HIS FEET, BEHIND HIM, 
WEEPING." 

The tears that grieved children shed upon a mother's 
breast, 

How blest ! 



I04 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Else, could we understand how " as a mother com- 
forteth (He said) 

We should be comforted ? " 

The tears that fall at Joy's strong touch, and sweet, 
compelling stress 

Of blessedness. 
How sweet are they ! for few the hours that, set o'er 
life supreme and high, 
They glorify ! 

And yet, to weep — to weep is yet more blest, is yet 
more sweet 

At Jesus' feet. 
And tears that then shall drip, shall not be ivcakly 
vain. 

Nor leave a stain. 

We know that tears must fall in this low, under-life. 

Tears rife 
With pain, with anguish, with unrest, with aching 
weariness 

And bitterness. 

It is not safe within one's self to grieve and pour 
out hot, hot tears — 

O'er wasted years ; 
O'er lonely graves, o'er poisoned springs, o'er that 
dead babe, the " Might Have Been," 
O'er fondled sin. 



SORE AFRAID. 10$ 

Then take them not away, O weeper, whoso'er thou 
art, 

To rust thine heart ; 
But let them here bedew His sacred feet, of whom 
the record still is kept. 
That Jesus wept. 

If there be not for thee one human breast, whereon 
to lean and weep, 
O creep 
But closer here : His heart is pitiful : His love 
seeks out the one 
Undone. 

Our sin, Thy grace : our grief. Thy love : we are too 
weak 

Jesus, to speak : 
Let these tears voice that we repent, that we entreat, 

Low at Thy feet. 
Monday Night, May 4, 1868. 



SORE AFRAID. 



" The angel came, and they 

Were sore afraid." — " But why ? " 

Wondered the little maid ; 
" I'm sure I should not cry, 

I should not be afraid ; 

And will he come this year 



106 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Again ? And do you think 

They would be frightened here ? " 

*' No dear ; you would not fear " — 

For, truth, one knows not how 
Fear could touch those pure eyes, 

That innocent clear brow. 
But if, — abashed we muse, — 

The angel should this year 
Go up and down the town, 

" Would they be frightened here ? " 

Would all that now looks fair 

Perhaps seem fitting ground 
If there the angel stepped 

And glory shone around ? 
Would he find men at toils 

Harmless as shepherds' are ? 
Would he find minds as apt 

At crediting a Star ? 

If we should lift our eyes 

And lo ! the angel, — would 
The deed or thought in hand 

Be what we wish it could ? 
Full eighteen hundred years 

So little change have made. 
That if the angel came 

W^e might be sore afraid ! 



THE sower's calling. 10/ 

THE SOWER'S CALLING. 

I. 
Do I pity the Sower ? 

He gives as he goes, 
And stops not to take tithings 

Of aught that he strews ; 
If thence grow harvests sometimes 

He'll pass not to see ; 
If thence some reap royally, 

'Tis others, not he. 
Do I pity the Sower ? 

He knows the coarse sand 
Cannot welcome nor nurture 

The seed in his hand ; 
Oft, he knows, the grains precious 

Will on the rocks dry. 
Or feed heedless birds, or blow 

With wayward winds by. 

II. 

Do I pity the Sower, 

His worn patient feet. 
His sick weariness often, 

His famine and heat, 
Hopelessness for the wayside 

And grief for the thorn, 
While the ignorant idlers 

Laugh him to scorn ? 
I might pity the Sower, 

Yet rather in mind 



I08 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Whereof one might glory 
I'm smilins: to find. 



III. 

If one through the town should go 

Trusted with bearing 
King's errands and mysteries 

Weighty, their sharing 
His own guerdon peculiar 

Would be, his alone ; 
We might envy, we others, 

And wish it our own. 
O the joy of the Sower ! 

The strange joy of one 
Who works not for wages, 

Timed not by the sun, 
Who, " in stripes beyond measure," 

Learns what means this word, 
*' Not by measure the Spirit 

Gives to him his Lord ; " 
Not reward just and equal. 

Like human desire 
To call in the laborer 

And give him his hire, 
Not e'en liberal balance, 

Enough but no more 
Of Divine grace and gloiy, — 

No measure, no shoi'e ! 
O the blessings that follow 

The Sower, from cleft 



EASTER MORNING. IO9 

Of the rocks he explores not, 

From hungry soil left 
With vital germs sinking 

To work there unguessed ! — 
Ah, good Sower ! no wonder 

Your trade you love best. 



EASTER MORNING. 

I. 

The air with song of robins rings, 
And now sweet Easter Morning brings 

A lily in her hand, 
While mournful Lenten days, gray-browed, 

Their vigil stern disband. 

II. 

New life to laughter stirs at last. 
The brooks and rivers locked so fast, 

The stark and rigid land : 
Once more sweet Easter Morning brings 

A lily in her hand. 

III. 
The flowers, from out dark cave and cell 
Where long like anchorites they dwell. 

Troop as at one command. 
To see sweet Easter Morning bring 

A lily in her hand. 



no RELIGIOUS POEMS. 



Wake, frozen heart, some praise to sing ! 
And hast thou naught to bring the King? 

Wilt see, and empty stand, 
The Resurrection Morning bring 
A lily in her hand ? 
Easter, 1S79. 



WHAT I DO, THOU KNOWEST NOT NOW, 
BUT THOU SHALT KNOW HEREAFTER. 

It is strange, oh ! so strange in this world where I 

stay. 
Waiting and wondering, day after day ; 
And I cannot tell why my Lord has it so. 
But sometime I shall know, for He said I should 

know. 

Perhaps all the roads are homelike and sweet 
And I feel the grass easy under my feet ; 
When, sudden, the whole turns a landscape unknown, 
Cold, wild, bewildering, horrible grown. 

Sometimes I've dear company going my way, 
And restful the nights then, joyful the day ; 
But in a moment I turn — it is gone ! — 
And through the long shadows I go on alone. 

There is left me no word, there is deigned me no sign 
Where they send me back word — these vanished of 
mine — 



SOMETHING TO DO FOR THE KING. Ill 

And I cannot guess why my Lord has it so, 
But sometime I shall know, for He said I should 
know. 

Strong helpers fail, tested ; and hindering things 
Clog heavy the soul that feels for its wings ; 
When I look for the rainbow after the rain, 
Dark fold the storm-clouds returning again. 

And my best hopes of future, my fair, fullest 

sheaves 
Perhaps mould and mildew, or turn yellow leaves ; 
Oh ! I cannot think why my Father does so, 
But sometime I shall know, since He said I should 

know. 

When I know I am sure I shall be satisfied. 
Nor want a thing altered that was on this side ; 
So I'll not be prying ; since God lets it be so, 
I will just wait a little, and then I shall know. 



SOMETHING TO DO FOR THE KING. 

For him whom the king delighteth 
To honor, what shall be done ? 

They bring the gorgeous apparel ; 
For the king's own steed they run. 

The king's own crown with rejoicing. 
They put upon him to wear. 



112 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

And no less than princely heralds, 
(While all the multitudes stare,) 

Proclaim through the market-places 
Before this favorite one, 

" For him whom the king delighteth 
To honor, this shall be done ! " 

But he whom his liege delighteth 

To honor, loves so the king 
I think with haste he would enter 

The throne-room : " Oh, not this thing, 
But if so my lord hath purposed 

To pleasure me," he would say, 
" This is my humble petition 

And this the request I pray : 
Let there be given thy servant 

The dower of special skill 
And something to do for the King ! 

The world can fulfill his will, 

" Yet I crave from his royal grace 

A ministry all my own, 
The secret of something he wants 

Entrusted to me alone. 
Or a hint of service he needs 

Beside me that's known to none. 
For the one whom the King delighteth 

To honor, let this be done ! 
Show me how best I can please him. 

What I can render or bring ; 
This my entreaty before him. 

Something to do for the King." 



LILIES ON THE LORDS TABLE. II3 

LILIES ON THE LORD'S TABLE. 

Did lilies ever look so white, elsewhere, 
As next the chalice, on the linen fair.-" 

O whiteness ! that cloth so afflict my heart,., 
That but with pain I look on what thou art ! 

Ah, blessed pangs of pain ! beyond pain's cost 
He gains, who so attains that sight, soon lost. 

Of spotless purity and peace, although, 
Against the lilies — dark his life doth show. 

So might be one born blind, who brought to sight, 
Trembles to see for the first time, the light. 

All symbols, how inadequate and dim ! 
They wash their robes and make them white through 
Him, 

Who, as a Lamb was slain ; and these, in white 
Shall walk with Him, shining as doth the light. 



THE NEWS OF CHRISTMAS TOLD A CHILD. 

Hush, child ! and hear how news the best 

That ever was heard or told. 
By angels sung, through the awed air rung 

One night in a country old. 

Through all that land did the children lie 
Soft folded away to rest ; 



114 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Tired mothers slept, and their babies crept 
Close to each sheltering breast. 

I think no one could have dreamed that night 

Of an evil, painful thing, 
And many a child must bright have smiled 

And tried in his sleep to sing. 

God's wonderful, watching, great gold stars 
Waked while the world was asleep ; 

Shepherds of Bethlehem under them 
Kept safe their tender sheep. 

Think how the little brooks sang low, 

And how all the night grew still ; 
Nor rustled there now one restless bough 

On a dark Judean hill. 

And then — 'twas then — the news was brought, 

But not first to priest or king ; 
The shepherds only, sitting lonely, 

Heard in this world angels sing. 

Their song, — " Glad tidings of great joy 
To the whole broad earth we bring ! 

Lo ! in David's town is Christ come down 
To be aye your Saviour-King. 

" He lies a babe in his swaddling clothes, 

A manger his lowly bed ! " — 
By no mortal tongue such tunes are sung ; 

All trembling the shepherds sped, — 



BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. II5 

And in his safe keep God held the sheep 

They left there alone, I know, — 
And found the Child, the Babe undefiled, 

And found the news truly so. 

Over the heights of the lofty years 

And the deep, resounding sea, 
The news has rung that the angels sung, — 

Over thus to you and me. 



BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. 

O Merchantman, rich Merchantman, 

Who hast so dear bought me. 
How can I aught but wonder much 

And wonder aye at Thee ! 
What was I worth ? What could there be 

That eye in me could see 
To make me get a thought, a price, 

And price of such degree ? 
What was there. Master, Thou had'st not 

Within creation's range ? 
Thine was the choice through crowded worlds 

Of all their best — how strange 
Thou should'st have noticed me, to choose 

Me for a thing of Thine ! 

O Merchantman, dear Merchantman, 
Beats heart so free as mine ? 



Il6 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Now I am glad and rid of care, 

Bearing no more alone 
Responsibility of self, 

But used with skill, and shown 
What I can do, how I may serve, 

For I am not my own. 
I bide me in a sweet content ; 

It matters little what 
Of gift, or grace, of faculty 

In me is vested not ; 
Since I am bought, I shall get used, 

And that enough will be. 
My Master, (still, not as I will,) - 

Ah ! use me constantly. 

Yet Merchantman, dear Merchantman, 
Who hast in love bought me. 

How can I aught but wonder much, 
And wonder, aye, at Thee ! 



PALE GOLD. 



When clouds brood dark and thick all day 

Sometimes at nightfall they make way 

Not for the purple, orange, rose, 

That a red, royal sunset shows, 

But for a slender, single bar 

Of pale gold, shining faint and far, 



PALE GOLD. 117 

It's one end wedged beneath clouds still, 
One stayed up by some western hill ; 
O primrose color of pale gold 
Like news not come, like joys half told. 

II. 

Sometimes on autiimn slopes, groAXTi thin 

And bare of leaves, strikes briefly in 

November sun. and with a rare 

Pervading, hov'ring grace hangs there. 

The wasted wraith of June's smilight 

This haze ethereal our sight 

Might deem; — and yet it strangely stays 

^^'ith ling'ring love the tranquil gaze ; 

O primrose color of pale gold, 

Like news not come, like joys half told. 

III. 

And on the memor\-. perchance. 

The thought of something kin may glance, 

How in tliose patient souls, unused 

To life's abundance, though infused 

\\'ith richest dyes, — in those denied 

The height of joy, the full of tide, — 

A spirit breathes of such content. 

In ev'ry tempered blessing lent, 

To such appreciation bent. 

Of gratitude and gladness blent. 

Where e'er a glor}- gliin'ring shines, 

That, by its unobtrusive signs, 



Il8 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Men read how blessed are the poor, 
Whose kingdom though not seen is sure, 
Whose hopes, like the pale primrose gold, 
Hint news not come, and joys not told. 



EXPECTING. 



The child whose eager hands with flowers 

Are running o'er 
Always believes those further on 

Fairer and more ; 
Expecting better still to get. 
More new, more strange, — only not yet. 

We go expecting on, and miss 

Time's count, beguiled 
Through life's long miles by this same trick 

As is the child ; 
We think, whate'er good has been met, 
Better to meet, — only not yet. 

No cheat this instinct is, but true 

It points. Expect 
And still expect, O soul ! for heir 

Thou art, elect 
To that thy highest fancies set 
Too low; 'tis thine, — only not yet. 

Where seeds and tears together dropped 
Thou art to come, 



A CRY. 119 

And find such royal harvest-fields 

Thou wilt be dumb ; 
Where mystery's answer waits for thee, 
And where thy treasure is, thou'lt be. 

Knowledge, its very name unknown, 

Beauty, skill, strength, 
Even perfection must be his 

Somewhere, at length, 
In whom prophetic, undenied 
Has cried, I shall be satisfied. 

Glad faces bear they through the world 

Who, all the way 
Expecting thus, a secret have 

That sweet each day 
Sings over ev'ry present fret 
Of joys to come, — only not yet. 



A CRY. 

" Behold I stand at the door and knock ; if any man hear my voice and 
open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with 
me." 

Sweet Guest, dear Guest, no more 
I lock the low, dim door. 
Where long with patience sweet 
Have stayed Thy weary feet ; 
Withdrawing bolt and bar, 
I set it now ajar. 

It is a poor, dark place, 
Unworthy of such grace ; 



I20 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

For through its pane, dust-deep, 
Only the shadows creep, 
And thick have spiders spun, 
Nor left space for the sun. 

And here no rich banquet 

Befitting Thee is set ; 

Not even bread is mine ; 

I have no food, no wine. 

No damask fine, no silver cup ; 

How, then, with me canst sup ? 

Oh ! that it were but clean ! 
For canst Thou really mean 
To come and sup wherein 
Only foul guests have been — 
A dusty dwelling where 
All empty is and bare ? 

Sweet Guest, dear Guest, if Thou 
In such canst go, come now ! 
O come ! hungiy I wait 
Longing, repentant, late. 
Withdraw each bolt and bar, 
And set my door ajar. 



OWNERSHIP. 



Some little, hoarded thing you've kept 
Treasured with care for years. 

And look at still through tender smiles 
Or crystal panes of tears. 



OWNERSHIP. 121 

No more, perhaps, than some half-worn 

Ribbon or faded glove, 
And yet it has a hidden worth, 

Its ownership you love. 

For it was hers — a friend so dear, 

So noble, held by you 
That even common things possessed 

By her, grew noble too. 
Pervaded so ; thus will perfume 

Indeed no more permit 
The secret hid of any that 

Keep company with it. 

God owns my life : this royalty 

It doth put on to wear. 
Or else its poverty and stint 

Would be too hard to bear. 
Therefore I live not worthlessly ; 

Invested with that claim ; 
Henceforth not wholly waste nor bad 

But signed His lovely name. 

Something of God's ! — no nobler rank 

Has been for stars create ; 
So grandly owned a simple child 

Can stand beside them mate. 
Something of God's ! His ownership 

Cannot forgetful be ; 
He will recall this keepsake life 

Trusted awhile with me. 



122 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 



LIGHTING HER CANDLE. 

" What woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not 
light a candle and sweep the house, and search diligently till she find it ? " — 
Jesus Christ. 

Lovers, and friends, and foes, 

Woman, have painted thee, 
Until the world is full 

Of their conceptions, — free 
To picture what thou art. 

Or hast done, or shalt be. 

Their canvas glows sometimes 
As angels were stayed there ; 

It darkens too, anon. 

With foul shapes of despair, 

Again, the faded looks 
Strange caricature wear. 

But my heart keeps, of all 
Most simple yet most grand, 

One : 'tis but an attitude 
Drawn by a Master Hand, 

And thus His better skill 
Would have a woman stand. 

She lights the candle kept 

In her house ready ; meek, 
With no outcry, patient. 

And strong alone to seek 
Her lost, she humbly toils ; 

This is no creature weak. 



Christ's peace. 123 

Still that lit candle throws 

Its steadfast light to-day ; 
Ah ! Woman, see thyself 

Shown by its clear, pale ray. 
Light ! Seek the lost ! alas 

If thy candle thou mislay. 



CHRIST'S PEACE. 



The Bringing. 

O Earth ! O Earth ! how restlessly, 

How long thy thoughts have striven 
To guess about the unexplored, 

The wondrous land of Heaven ! 
O Earth ! O Earth ! rejoice and shout, 

Lo ! Heaven thinks on thee, 
And opening sends to thee a word ; 

Judge thence what Heaven must be ! 
Of all the loveliness of Heaven 

That ear hath never heard, 
They chose for angels to bring here 

Peace., — that one heav'nly word. 
How far unlike thy language, Earth ! 
And yet how canst thou miss. 
Though foreign be the sweet new word, 

To judge of Heaven from this ? 



124 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

II. 

The Bequeathing. 

In simple, quiet words was left, 

When Christ to glory blest 
Returned from toil and victory, 

This royal, rich bequest. 
So much of Heaven lowly dwells 

In creatures made of clay, 
So much of immortality 

Abides with men to-day ! 
Hast thou not had thy share, O soul ? 

A share was meant for thee ! 
Ah ! only wake to claim that part, 

Lest thou defrauded be. 



ON THE WAY TO CHURCH. 

A PUBLICAN is going 
Up to thy house to-day : 

He brings no other showing, 
Has nothing else to say, 

Than " God be merciful to me 

A sinner, guilty before Thee ! " 

Others will be there raising 

The Holy, Holy, high : 
Others who give thanks, praising 

With grateful, lifted eye ; 
But in his hand he brings no gift. 
But his shamed face he cannot lift, 



A CHRISTMAS DREAM. 1 25 

And Others grace and glory 

Will beg, and gifts divine 
To crown the Kingdom's story 

Whose honor all is Thine : 
This passion sole of prayer has he : 
" O God, be merciful to me ! " 

Oh ! come he must, though feeling 

With such to come no right : 
Be what Thou wilt in dealing 

With him — broken, contrite — 
And treat after thy heart's own way 
The sinner in thy house to-day. 



A CHRISTMAS DREAM. 

It was in the bleak December, 

And the barrens of the year ; 
In the night I heard her cr)ang, 

Little Alice, maid-child dear, 
And she said, " I dreamed so ! wand'ring 

In felled woods, I thought I heard 
Trees prone, sobbing for their leaflets, 

Bare nests, wailing for a bird. 
Still 'twas empty, empty, empty ; 

All was taken, nothing left, 
And they wrung their hands, went sadly 

Crying up and down, bereft, 



126 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

I mean, the little spirits did, 

Naked wood-sprites, shivering, cold, 
And I sobbed, too, knowing somehow, 

Knowing, though I was not told 
That it was the blessed twilight 

Of the holy Christmas Eve, 
And it must the stricken bosom 

Of the lonesome forest grieve. 
When the Christ-Child, in the midnight. 

As it was His wont to do, 
Passed their way, and paused to gather 

Holly, hemlock, pine — His due. 
There would lack full tale to give him ; 

— So they wept, and wept, and wejot ! " 

"Little Alice," said I soothing — 

" Come close to me " — close she crept :- 
Said I, " Make it like a picture ; 

We will play it's Christmas Eve. 
You and I slip out together" — 

Lights and guests and games, we leave. 
Now we gain the solemn forest, 

Wniere the scattered trees stretch high. 
All in rows, like pillared church-aisles, 

Arched above with purple sky. 
Here we mark the sobbing wood-sprites 

And note, too, as we go by, 
A woodman's axe, and tree-trunks prostrate 

Felled for fire-wood, where they lie. 
And my little, weeping Alice 

Spies an empty nest, caught low 



A CHRISTMAS DREAM. 12/ 

Where 'twas tossed by some oak's falling 

In a tangled thicket- row. 
Tenderly my Alice gathers 

Of the club-moss at her feet — 
Weaves it in a garland deftly, 

With her fingers skilled and fleet, 
Wraps it warm round the bird-homestead 

Now deserted, lone and bare. 



Hush! — I, holding little Alice, 

Point along the aisles — and there 
Soft, down an unrolling star-beam, 

The Christ-Child ! — look ! how fair ; 
A face so white and innocent, 

A glory in His hair ! 
A chain of winding, linked, wrought steps 

His footprints in the leaves. 
His hands, his breast run o'er; his robe 

Is held up full of sheaves ! 

All with empty hands, before him 

Behold the wood-sprites kneel ; 
And will the Christ-Child be so wroth 

He'll crush them 'neath His heel ? 
Dear Alice, in the silver starlight 

I see Him take one tear ; 
I see His hand outstretched to bl 

The murmured words I hear, 
" O ye contrite, tender spirits 

So receive I, tribute rare ! 



128 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Richer, costlier, for His Birthday, 

Asks the Christ-Child not to share. 
He comes not to take, O children ! 

But to give so Kingly free 
That your emptiness, His glory 

By its very depth, must be." 
Then we see the lovely Christ-Child 

With a smile of wondrous light 
Lift, moreover, nest and garland, 

And, on, through the darkening night, 
Lit by torch-light of that diamond 

The transfigured tear is grown, 
Leave in passing, lavished widely. 

Outward from His full hands strewn, 
Feathery down of nestling snow-flakes, 

Consolation, pure and blest. 

Now, how satisfied, how peaceful, 

The wood-spirits sink to rest. 
Cradled soft on velvet mosses, 

Spotless blankets tucked above. 
And with lullabies, rocked sleepy. 

Toned with care and taught by love. 
For, as snow-flakes, busy, noiseless, 

Fill up all, — stumps, nests, bare trees,- 
Low runes croon they, O, so gently ! 

Little Alice thinks, like these : — 



" Sleep, beloved, rest, beloved. 
Thou art rich and comforted. 



KEPT WAITING. I29 

Deepest hollow, fullest prove'd, 
Barest edge, most choice bestead ; 

Never lonely nor forsaken, 
Hold but up thy emjDty cup. 

Poverty for tribute taken, 

Heaven's best shall fill it up." 
Christmas, 1874. 



KEPT WAITING. 



" It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait. — Rest in the 
Lord and wait. O tarry thou the Lord's leisure." 

In the heart was a longing, 

A vivid desire. 
That had so long lain hot there 

It burned forth like fire. 
And craved to be satisfied ; 

" Give, Lord, give ! " it cried ; 
But for years it seemed silence 

Alone that replied. 

And at last the fulfillment. 

Light-rustling drew near, 
When the heart beat its quickest, 

With hushed, listening ear. 
The wing'd hope, as if frightened, 

Spread pinions and fled ! 
*' Thou must wait, Heart, yet longer," 

Stern Life coldly said, 

" What shall I do while I wait ? " 
Confused asked the heart, 



130 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 



" Shall I Struggle for fitness ? 

Shall toil be my part ? " 
Soft on its perplext dismay, 

Clear as a behest, 
As caress tender, answered, — 

The words — Rest, heart, rest. 

" I know, Lord, what waiting is," 

Still questioning, slow, 
The heart sighed, " Like an exile 

I heavily go 
To a barren isle, sentenced 

I know not how long ; 
O what may I do there ? " — Hope ; 

Came back like a song. 

" But, this is too beautiful," 

The heart whispered, " Rest 
Belongs to the conquerors 

And hope to the blest, 
And I am not yet victor ; 

Can this be for me. 
While I fall back defeated ? " 

Fear ?iot, yes, for thee. 

Thou art 7uaiting His kisiire 

Who spares time for all ; 
Think not thy hearfs dear desire 

Shall forgotten fall 
Of Him, even ^mid the tvhole 

Loud world s plaints and prayers. 



JOY WILL FIND YOU WHERE YOU ARE. I3I 

Nay ; the Lord's leisure tarry ^ 
For His delay wears 

Not the eoldiiess of mandate 

To exile afar. 
But, howe'er thou'st kept waiting 

Thy Host's wishes are. 
Thou, meanwhile, entertained 

His own guest should' st abide. 
Well cared for, not impatient, 

Till called to His side. 



JOY WILL FIND YOU WHERE YOU ARE. 

Yearning hearts, ye long, ye crave, 

Having, maybe, all things, save 

Some one soul's desire that could 

Only make possessions good. 

Verily, ye do no wrong 

For immortals here must long ; 

To wish, yea, to anticipate. 

Is their birth mark in this state, 

Yet though thirst and famine sore 

Exercise thee, heed this lore : — 

Bide thee patient in thy place ; 

Do its work, and take its grace; 

For, come joy from near or far. 

It will find you where you are. 

Restless hearts, ye wander wide, 
Questioning on every side, 



132 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Roaming wearily, with mind 
Bent to find what none e'er find, 
Joy's hid house, the secret throne 
Where she lives alone, unknown. 
Thou would'st thence fain wrest her best ; 
Clumsy pilferer ! foolish guest ! — 
Be more child-like ; wait thy turn ; 
With humility this learn : — 

Bide thee patient in thy place ; 

Do its work and take its grace ; 

For, come joy from near or far, 

Joy win find you where you are. 

Humble hearts, to whom delay 
Hath taught silence day by day, 
Deem not overlooked, forgot, 
Your renownless, modest lot. 
David walked the sheep about ; 
There th' anointing sought him out ; 
Gideon threshe'd ; there no less 
Angels found him by the press. 

Bide thee patient in thy place ; 

Do its tvork and take its grace ; 

For, come joy from ?tear or far, 

Joy will find you where you arc. 



TRUST. 

The glad river nmneth 
On errands for God ; 



TRUST. 133 



Trees make way rev'rently 

Each side the road, 
Just as on Sabbath days 

Humble folk do 
When up the churches' aisles 

Preachers pass through. 

God and His messengers 

Need not make haste ; 
Though with commissions 

Manifold graced, 
Yet glides she placidly, 

Gracious and calm, 
Nor loses breath to sing 

One steady psalm. 

Autumn's gay maple leaf, 

Falling unmissed. 
Rides with the river 

Whither it list, 
Carried so light a weight, 

At the tide's mood, 
Through gilded meadow-land, 

Through the black wood. 

Sweet that a life should lie 

As the leaf lies 
With an uplifted face 

Towards changing skies. 
Simply content to leave 

Choice of its own, 



134 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

And to the river's pulse 
Floating; alone. 



So, thou grand will of God, 

Float my life down, 
Lying how small a thing 

Homely and brown ! 
Breast to thy current beat 

Let it still be, 
O, thou wide will of God, 

Borne upon thee ! 



THE QUIETING 

" I have behaved and quieted myself." — Psalms cxxxi. 2. 
I. 

We must be patient. Heart ! We know 

That all which comes will go ; 

All things are sometime overpast — 

Yes, even pain, at last. 

Then, Heart, when we are cheered once more, 

And kinder than before 

Seems heaven's sunlight shining clear 

After the rain-storm drear, 

Can we lift up undaunted eyes 

To those deep, tender skies 

If in the dark we doubted light, 

Nor could believe that night 

Would with the shadow flee away 

At the return of day .'' 



THE QUIETING. 135 

We should be shamed before the grace 

That found upon our face 

The frowns of fretfuhiess, the tears 

Of weak, mistrustful fears. 

We must be patient, Heart ! nor thus 

Let God's good gifts find us. 



II. 

We must be patient, Heart ! Some day 

In the land far away 

We may upon the burnished street 

A noble angel meet, 

And wonder at his gaze, as though 

He saw, our guise below, 

A something worthy honor, fit 

That one should covet it. 

Then, ere the reason can be sought, 

Softly it may be brought : 

" These gained the joys that such await 

From tribulation great. 

Though angels know not pain, their eyes 

Regard in rev'rent wise 

Those who have suffered, for they share 

Something He had to bear 

Who now to all his realms is light, 

And robes his saints in white." 

Should we not stand abashed, my Heart, 

If grudgingly our part 

Of Christ's thorn-crown we here had worn, 

As though in spite or scorn 



136 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Of that the angels look upon 

And count high honor won ? 

We must be patient, Heart ! 'Tis sure 

We count them happy which endure. 



I SHALL ARISE. 



I SHALL arise ! I shall arise ! 
Lo ! to all dumb things doth not this suffice ? 
With this content the Mayflower buried lies 
And bides unmurmuring deep winter snows 
Though late, though long, — as one who knows 
And whispers when the storm-wind wildest blows, 

I shall arise ! I shall arise ! 

I shall arise ! I shall arise ! 
All patient with his low estate the wise 
Worm crawls on foot, or diligently plies 
At his own shroud, there calm and willing dies, 
To wake with wings, and symbol in their dyes 
That flutter to the glorious, high skies, 

I shall arise ! I shall arise ! 

I shall arise ! I shall arise ! 
Is it the soul, alone the soul, that tries 
Its forfeit to evade ? the soul that flies 
From the sweet, reasonable mien, the debt 
Of one who for the hope before him set 
Endures despising shame ? I fret : and yet 

I shall arise ! I shall arise ! 



KINDRED. 137 

I shall arise ! I shall arise ! 
For earth shall be the opened Paradise, 
And for this mortal the immortal guise, 
Such change as eye nor ear can guess ; — and so 
Sing, soul, this Easter day ! Though poor and low, 
I live now, Christ is risen, and I know 

I, too, shall rise ! I shall arise ! 



KINDRED. 



" Perhaps there should not be the word 'stranger' in any language.' 
Emerson. 

Once when the procession went by. 

With its flags to the breeze set high, 

And its hundreds that two and two 

Marched together as comrades do, 

A sentinel's wandering gaze. 

That for once left the public ways, 

Marked aj^art in a covert dim 

One hidden, seen only by him. 

Then his gentle soul, touched with ruth. 

Moved him, pausing, to cry, " Forsooth, 

I pity you, friend, that alone 

And unnoticed, because unknown. 

You are left behind in the shade ; 

No room in the ranks they have made. 

And none thence have beckoned to claim 

Acquaintance, or called you by name. 

The procession went by, — but you, 

I think, all the lonelier grew. 



138 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

And maybe you wept at a fate 
So unfriended and desolate." 



" Ah ! be not so sure," rang reply 

Clear, fearless, as oriole's cry, 

" In the North and the South I have friends, 

Friends from the world's most distant ends ; 

I have friends in the East and West, 

The friends I want most and love best ! 

When, then, the procession goes by 

So much the more blessedly I • 

Sit smiling and dreaming of all 

Comradeships that shall me befall. 

Of company I shall be in, 

And friendships choice that I shall win. 

T/iey shall come, the prophecy reads, 

Whose expectance my glad heart so feeds, — 

From North and South and East and West, 

And shall sit down to take their rest 

In the kingdom of the Father, — 

Then can one not wait, and rather, 

Who shall know the saintliest then. 

Meet divinest women and men. 

The flower of all ages and times, 

The noblest of races and climes. 

When the traveling- robes they wore 

As disguise will hide no more 

The lineaments half we fear 

E'en learning and loving them here ? 

*' Oh ! fast to his home, my Father 



YET SHALT THOU BE. 139 

These friends of my own doth gather, 
So, let the procession go by ; 
I am glad, and no wonder why ; 
For any reminder can make 
This sweet, secret melody wake 
That is ready by night or day 
To sing in my hearing alway, — 
There's a throng where I, too, belong, 
Will sweep me on soon with a song. 
And I shall have friends who have been 
Little known ; shall be with my kin 
Who have lived alien here ; though alone 
All my life shall come to my own, 
And recognize, then, there complete 
Eternal relationships sweet." 



YET SHALT THOU BE. 

O Soul, thou winged thing, 
That strong-armed Life so often flings 
On cruel edges of sharp griefs, 
Thou dost let go thy best beliefs 
On jagged edges of dark sin 
Thou dost forget all thou hast been. 
And all thy right singing to fly 
High in the sunlight and the sky : 
Not yet appears what thou shalt be, 
For thy King yet hath faith in thee ; 
Yet shall thou be — wait, wait and see ! 
As a dove's burnished, silver wings, 



140 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Who flietli homeward in the light, 
Against the rainbow, pure and white. 

Though thou in pain broken hast lain 

With flesh so faint though spirit fain, 

As angels that excel in strength, 

Thou shall mount up with wings at length ! 

At even-time, if not before, 

Through thy cage door 

Thou glad shall soar, 

Kind death will ope that door; no more 

Languor, infirmity or lack 

Shall hold thee down or call thee back. 

But cumbered powers and hindered will 

At last to perfect freedom thrill. 

Yet shalt thou be this lovely thing, 

And with the dove's fair burnished wing 

Go flying homeward, shining white, 

Against the rainbow's roseate light ; 

How straight and swift thou'lt fly, O Dove ! 

Into His bosom. His, thy Love ! 



THE COPY. 



A WOMAN paused by her window, 
Before she went her way. 

At morning to the waiting toil 
And care of ev'ry day. 

She lingered with a weary look 
Why did her wistful eyes 



THE COPY, 141 

Light suddenly, as if at sight 
Of some strange, glad surprise ? 

She had but seen a little child, 

A three-year-old, wee girl, 
In her simple gown and apron, 

With hair not half in curl. 
But she caught such charm and comfort 

As only women do. 
From the dimpled cheek, white forehead. 

And fresh eyes dancing blue. 
That across the street showed gleaming 

A dusky door-way through. 

All day to the homely measure 

Of plain accustomed care, 
She softly sang, " A little child,'' 

Scarcely herself aware 
Of rhyme or tune. It seemed to her 

As though the words set there. 
In that old-fashioned door she'd read, 

Illumed like text or prayer. 

" Or as if," she said, while lowly 

And cheerfully she wrought. 
The lesson growing lovelier 

And clearer to her thought, — 
" Or as if it were a copy 

That my kind Lord had writ. 
And I to-day the whole page down 

Were set to copy it. 



142 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

" Not to be over-careful then ; 

Not to be over-wise ; 
To guard my heart pure, unspotted, 

Have fresh, out-looking eyes ; 
To be hopeful, trustful, humble, 

Believing, undefiled. 
And aye to believe and quiet 
-Myself as a weaned child. 

" And if it be indeed at last, 

To me unworthy given. 
To hear it said, ' Come in ; of such 

The kingdom is of heaven,' 
Perhaps He'll send to let me in, 

A child across the floor, 
A child to be the first I see. 

There standing in the door." 



REQUITAL. 



Gracious and gen'rous souls forget 
Values that lesser ones would set 
On dividends their due. 

The gift they bring, the good they do, 
Then pass to work the same anew 
Nor, common, wait return. 

One thinks: "A certain man," that day, 
Not only paid, going on his way, 
But, "Whatsoe'er," he said, 



NOT MY WILL BUT THINE BE DONE. I43 

*' Thou spendest more, I will repay ; " 
So, though uncalculating, they 
Not grudging to fill out 

That large, royal-entrusted More 
Seem shaping all their giving o'er 
His lib'ral mind who passed before 
So near they learned his ways, 

And for the love of Him they trust. 
The bankrupt's noble Bondsman, must 
Stint not, nor need to keep 

A careful score with jealous pains ; 
The " When I come again " remains 
Their joy and recompense. 



NOT MY WILL BUT THINE BE DONE. 

Not mine ! not mine ! 
If that I did, I could but stand amazed at last, 
My doing, my undoing, self-condemned, aghast. 
For what my will wrought out would grow to. Lord, 

is past 
My knowing. I work in darkness ; Thou only hast 
The secret orderly and beautiful whereby 
If I obey Thine eye, not asking idly wh)'-, 
My being shall coherently fair plans fulfill ; 
I would not dare, I could not bear just my own will ; 
Not my will, then, not mine ! 



144 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

But Thine ! but Thine ! 
For while this will of Thine blindly I'm doing, so, 
I work, sure 'tis worth while ; what lovely shapes 

'twill show. 
What rare designs, I smile to dream and guess, till 

lo! 
The time arrives, the true light cometh, and I know. 
Thy will, then, always — Thine ! 



SON, THOU ART EVER WITH ME. 

To even our fretfulness 

God answers not disdain ; 
Oft the soul that questions Him 

In jealousy and pain. 
At the comfort of the word 

That he sends back again, 
Looks up like a cradled child 

Soothed with a sweet refrain. 

We ask why his beloved 

Seem so to suffer loss. 
Why on the pure and upright 

Rests the heaviest cross ; 
But ah ! these smile contented ; 

We, if our ears are fine, 
May catch the pledge that keeps them, 

Too happy to repine — 
Son, thou art ever with me 

And all that I have is thine. 



ONLY FOOTSORE. 145 

We ask why earth's best plaudits 

Are not for those who bear 
The day-long toil, but rather 

For those who choose and share 
At whiles a showy portion ; 

Is theirs that dearer sign, 
So7i, thou art ever with me 

And all that I have is thine. 

Wert thou joint heir of kingdoms 

Would'st need to envy men 
Of lesser rank and honor? — 

Surely, sufficeth then, 
O heir of love immortal 

This heritage of thine, 
Son, thou art ever with me, 

And all that I have is thine. 



ONLY FOOTSORE. 

Four pilgrims at the night-fall 
Sought the inn-door to plead ; 

Then quoth the Host, " How fared ye 
That shelter now ye need ? " 

" I met with thieves," the first said ; 

" I lost my way," spake one ; 
"Me tempests chased," another; 

And you, the last, my son ? 



146 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

" Dear Host, no strange adventure 
No danger wild I knew, 

But oh ! I am so footsore ! " 
" Come ; I will refresh you." 

Blest master of the household 

How good it is for us 
That when we're only footsore 

Thou op'nest to us thus ! 



A CHILD'S FACE AT THE WINDOW. 

I COULD not comprehend 

The preacher nor his text ; 
I walked with downcast head, 

And brooded thoughts perplext. 
In things too deep for me 

My footing soon I lost, 
'Twixt doubt and faithless cavil 

Swaying wind-blown and tossed. 

At last my eyes I lifted ; 

A face looked down at me, 
A child's face at the window ; — 

Could there evangel be 
More swift ? ashamed I said, 

And must I so forget 
That lesson old, the child 

Who in the midst was set ? 



THE KEEPERS OF THE RINC.'S BIRTHDAY, I47 

As innocent and simple, 

As fearless, if I'd be, 
Quiet-behaved I'd fret not, 

Nor start, at mystery. 
The child's face at the window 

Shall, like a masterpiece. 
Be, henceforth, mine to copy ; 

O Lord, my skill increase ! 



THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S BIRTHDAY. 

He is the King of Kings ; and yet 

Upon his birthday morn 
No gorgeous, long procession-throng 
Of kings and nobles moves along, 

Chanting, The Christ is born ! 

No blazoned banners are spread wide, 

No beacons leap and flare, 
The guns are silent, and the throats 
Of trumpets fling no triumph notes 

Out on the startled air. 

He is the King of Glory, Heir 

Of Power and Kingdom, yea ; — 
Yet wise nor mighty of the earth 
With their pomp celebrate his birth ; 
The children keep his day. 

The children hold his birthday best 
Of all the year of days ; 



148 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

They keep it festival, they sing 
The ghid songs for his welcoming, 
The carols for his praise. 

Is it not worthy of a King 

Once stainless Child who lay ? 
Let cleanest souls his honor show, 
And children still before him go ;- 
The children keep his day. 



A LILY IN LENT. 

The Lily would not wait, but full and wide 
Its Easter white displayed in Lenten-tide. 
Mistaken, early Lily ! how canst thou 
Thy garment choice of praise so show forth now, 
While through a vale of penitence and prayer. 
Fasting and sober-clad, the faithful fare ? 

On Sunday in the church the grave, good priest 
The children catechised, from large to least ; 
" What is the day ? " " Sunday midway in Lent." 
"What then is Lent.?" "A Fast," they said 

meant. 
" This Sunday ; is it Fast or Feast ? " Perplext 
They paused ; and so the priest clearly by text 
Set forth how every Sunday of the year 
Is Feast, a day of joy and holy cheer. 

Ah ! then, chide not the fearless Lenten flower, 
Timing its glad bloom by no Easter's hour. 



STAR OF BETHLEHEM. I49 

So fair a type of that therein thou hast, 
Which, Lily of all days, and Feast in Fast, 
No season can effect ; which by its own 
Completeness, come whene'er it will, is known. 



STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 

With bated breath I wonder, 
The solemn star-light under 
Of late, still Christmas night, 
What manner of strange, new sight 
Was that wondrous pilgrimage 
Of simple, earnest seer and sage, 
By the leading of a star ! 
We, too, simple, earnest are. 
We would be as honest men ; 
Beckon, star, O beckon, then. 
Shine for us as once for them, 
Star, grave Star of Bethlehem ! 
Mindful they of naught beside 
Than the stately, golden guide, 
Ah ! no need, no need indeed 
Had they, pressing on, to heed 
The illuminated town 
Or the home-lamps nestled down 
Warm and near. Shine from above, 
Our near-sightedness remove ! 
For we, longing too, would gaze 
Higher than these earth-bound ways ; 



150 RELIGIOUS POEMS, 

We lift eager eyes on high 
And with humble daring ciy, — 
Draw us as thou didst draw them, 
Star, sweet Star of Bethlehem ! 



TIRED. 

So tired, so tired ! 

Father, hold me in Thine arms, 
And fold Thy soothing, restful calm, 

Around my quivering heart ! 
Tired, tired with throbs of anguish wild, 
Oh ! take Thy fainting, falling child 

From the outer glare apart. 

So tired, so tired ! 
Worn out with sobbing. Lord, I come, 
Begging for mother — love and home, 
Thine own dear heart beside. 

1 am not weeping any more, 

And calm the tempests that before. 
Swept curbless, wild and wide. 

So tired, so tired ! 
Comfort and hush me into rest, 
Against Thy loving, pitying breast ; 

I will not go away. 
Wounded, and spent, and cold and sore. 
Let me rest here forever more. 

And never from Thee stray. 



THEY WAIT THE EASTER TIDE. I51 

EJACULATION. 

To Thee all angels cry aloud ; the heavens and all 

the powers therein. 
To Thee Cherubmi and Seraphim continually do 

xry, 
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. 
Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy 

glory. 



Even the cricket hath a shrill 
And small but steady voice to trill 
Thy lofty praise. The one dumb spot 
In sky and earth be my soul not ! 
O Lord and King ! let my soul be 
A voice unwearied, praising Thee. 



THEY WAIT THE EASTER TIDE. 

(Easter-Day, 1S84.) 



The florist filled his shelves with roots, 
With seedlings, bulbs, and tender shoots. 
Then by love's magic, coaxing skill, 
Controlled them deftly to his will 
Till very royalty of bloom 
Defied the winter's barren gloom 
And grew, a rich and lavish mass, 
All winter in their house of glass. > 



152 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

Carnation, pansy, jacqueminot, 
A single grace they used to know 
In summer-time did not forget, 
Nor mignonette, nor violet, 
But rollicking in thickets grew, 
Thrilling the senses through and through 
With faint suggestions half of rest 
And half of mysteries unguessed. 

The florist's tact if was that still 
Controlled them deftly to his will ; 
He shifted them where shade or sun 
Favored or forwarded each one, 
Tempered the air- from hour to hour. 
And nourished them with dip or shower, 
So that the winter's bride ne'er missed 
As many roses as she list. 
Nor belle her tribute from them all, 
Nor sick one hers, nor hero's pall 
Lilies that thousands haste to strow 
With palms upon a prince laid low. 

And yet the Murm'rer grew afraid. 
Watching the florist at his trade. 
He thought him odd for treating so 
Some of the choicest plants that grow. 
He thought him partial : — was it fair 
To thrust these back in cellar air 
Leaving them cold with little care ? 
While common ones had every share 



THEY WAIT THE EASTER-TIDE. 1 53 

In petting, forcing, sun and dew. 

He cculd not rest until he knew 

When weeks went on and still there seemed 

Favoritism, as he deemed. 

" How can you thus vex and retard 

The best so long ? It does seem hard." 

" Hard ? hard their triumph hour to hide ? 

They only wait the Easter-tide. 

Hindered ? Hindered for honor, yes ! 

They must not wake too soon for less." 

II. 

It came transcendent Easter-tide ; 

The Murmurer stood dim aisles beside 

And saw in snowy splendors rise, 

Like very flowers of Paradise, 

The blooms that he had been so wise 

To fear the florist might despise. 

Long paused the Murmurer, and thought 

Nor went his way again untaught. 

He owned that often he had felt 

Impatient at the way God dealt 

With noblest men : They seemed the vext, 

The crossed, the hindered and perplext, 

While better chance to lesser worth 

Appeared to him the way on earth. 

" Why ? Why ? " the Murmurer of old 

Had even dared to question bold. 

It does not err, the Murmurer's eye ; 
Angels or men cannot deny 



154 RELIGIOUS POEMS, 

That joys to strongest souls come late, 

That sweetest souls have most to wait, 

That rarest ones with least regard 

By life seem handled. This looks hard, 

We cannot understand, and yet 

'Tis weak to pity or regret ; 

For God has secrets with such men 

And women that are past our ken. 

E'en through the simple florist's speech 
Some faint illumining may reach ; 
" Hard ? hard their triumph-hour to bide ? 
They only wait the Easter-tide. 
Hindered ? Hindered for honor, yes ; 
They must not wake too soon for less." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



STAY-AT-HOMES. 



Yes; stay-at-homes, this summer, 

And as resigned, you see, 
As lovers of the woods and sea 

Would naturally be. 
We've many claims, won't run in debt ; 

Of course, with our small means, 
These hard times just make absolute 

Life behind window-screens. 

The Common's my resource — oh ! well, 

I won't " talk Boston," now ; 
But still you needn't laugh ; is it 

So easy to prove how, 
In other cities' hearts, they keep 

A great play-ground as rare ? 
We've taken charming summer trips, 

Now haven't we, John, there ? 

For instance, when we sat and talked, 
One evening, after tea ; — 



156 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

With doves' and sparrows' company, 

He wrote verses for me. 
I've laid them up, — to keep in mind, 

As souvenirs past price, 
The season when he stayed at home ; 

Be sure you say they're nice ! 



Ah ! oriole hunts him 

Some beautiful swing, 
The lover of beauty ! 

Ere he will sing. 
Robin's a rover. 

So is the jay, 
Swallow and bobolink 

Wander all day. 

But brown little sparrows, 

Faithful and true, 
Pleased with the sunshine. 

Pleased with the dew. 
Stay by contented, 

And flutter and croon. 
Musical citizens ! 

Nor tire of their tune. 

Birds of the light wing 
That roam far and wide 

Are bright-hued and merry. 
Sweet-voiced, beside. 

But I, — close by, living 
And working, — love best 



STAY-AT-HOMES. 1 5/ 

The stay-at-home sparrows, 
The sparrows brown-drest ! 

They chirp for the toilers 

Who, coming that way. 
Aye know where to find them, 

So that every day 
Need not lack song in it. 

Something to grace 
The monotone labor, 

The one same old place. 

Oh ! there is a sparrow 

Lives in my heart. 
Sings so continually. 

Knows such sweet art 
To build common straws 

That the region affords, 
And twigs not imported 

Into nest beams and boards. 

So, bonny tame sparrow. 

Faithful and true. 
Dear little stay-at-home, 

I love you, I love you ! 
Yes, though they are gorgeous 

And traveled, the rest. 
Keep you proud company. 

Love you the best. 



158 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



SMILING TO HERSELF. 

A LADY smiling to herself, only a mote, that fleet 

Was lost to sight again amid the millions on the 
street ! 

And yet, a stranger catching sight of that rapt, flick- 
ering smile. 

Pleased strangely by the happy thing, said to himself 
the while, — 

"Where should I go, could I but track the lady's 

swift smile home. 
Through what thoughts dense and shady, or smooth 

and fragrant, come, 
And find at last what sunny spot, that, full of 

warmth and light. 
Is fit to be birthplace for such a glad and dainty 

sprite .'' 

I would not with a rude, rough grasp, could I thus 

play the boy 
And chase the smile anonymous, its quietude annoy, 
Nor would I brush one gold-dust grain from off my 

butterfly ; 
Yet I should like to follow; and half I wonder why." 

The stranger phased with questions thus his journey, 

not too free 
Itself with entertainment ; nor had he thought to be 



LOVE IS NO COURTIER. 1 59 

Replied to ; but lo ! above the heads of all a white, 
Slight spectral thistle-down sailed slow, and caught 
his sight. 

Was it the lady's smile, whose ghost came back so 
mute to chide 

The stranger's prying queries and too presumptuous 
pride ? 

Or merely mortal thistle-down that roamed its rest- 
less quest 

And sought the town, more worldly or more fearless 
than the rest ? 

Enough, that though his lifted hand it would not 

stoop to touch 
Its message was not missing: "Stranger, be glad 

that such 
As thoughts, and thistle-down, and smiles, are 

winged made, and so 
Leave, eluding us unhandled, some things we do not 

know." 



LOVE IS NO COURTIER. 
I, 

Love is no courtier ; Love is a prince. 

He royally gives, and free ; — 
As the riderless waves that tramp to thy feet 

Bear tribute unceasing to thee. 



l6o MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Carven white sea-shells, twisted sea-weed, — 

Thus lavishly, tirelessly he : — 
But i£ one were Lover, and you were the Loved, 

What would you ask, may-be ? 

n. 
" Something to fondle, and something to keep, 

Something to have and hold, 
Something to last and something to love 

When I am grey and old. 
Earth has her gold-chests miserly locked ; 

But though he found the key, 
Since it is hea\'y, slippery, cold, 

It should not be that for me. 

III. 

" Fields wear violets, tucked in their breasts, 

Winsome and tender they : 
But Love is of kinship stronger than this. 

That cannot outlive the May, 
Queens love their gems ; what's that to a girl 

With the passionate pulse of love ? 
What, to a woman, old and black-gowned, 

With Heaven so near to prove ? 
No ; something to fondle, something to keep. 

Something to have and hold. 
Something to last and something to love 

When I am grey and old." 

IV. 

My Love asked no questions, needed no choice. 
Only gave into my breast. 



EMBROIDERY. 



i6i 



Memories golden forever to me : — 

Memories tender and true as she : — 
Memories deathless as jewels be ; — 

So to my heart they're pressed ; 
Something to fondle and something to keep ; 

Something to have and hold, 
Something to last and something to love 

When I am grey and old. 
Brooklyn, N. Y., March, 1S70. 



EMBROIDERY. 

I. 

Colorless the air, and sombre lies without the 

window-pane, — 
Where the leafless vine weaves framework, twisted 

deftly, vein by vein ; 
Full of summer hue and beauty shows within the 

Lady there, 
Busy fingers, fluttering flosses, and rose ribbons in 

her hair. 

II. 
If the snow-flakes be not petals, dropped from lilies 

overblown, 
Then without of all June's garden is not left one 

flower alone ; 
But within, beneath her fingers, flowers spring grow- 
ing, glowing through 
Pansies stained all gold and purple, broidered on 

the silken blue. 



l62 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



III. 



It is but a passing vision, where the curtains loop 

apart, 
Yet I, who pass outside, bear from it subtle fragrance 

in my heart ; 
Face the storm with step more fearless, go my way 

with better will, 
For the lady's soft, rich pansies, seen across her 

window-sill. 

IV. 

For what friend, or lover, works she pansies, that 

mean thoughts, they say ? 
Well, I need not mind ; unaltered let the nameless 

picture stay, 
Just the bent head, and the flosses, and the curtain 

caught away. 
Showing on the twilight's background, looming 

stormy, glooming gray. 



Still, I might be thankful, knowing strong men have 
been saved ere now 

By no greater thing than this is, — only the remem- 
bering how 

Some pure woman sits embroidering in the shielded 
home's warm light, 

Waiting, holding heart's-ease ready for his coming 
back at night ! 



THIS SIDE. 163 



THIS SIDE. 

To answer all or challenge, to come at any knock, 
There is no porter standing to turn the key in lock, 
That narrow door lies dumbly beneath its low, green 

thatch ; 
Mute, reverent, I linger, and finger o'er the latch. 

This side, there's yellow sunshine, and a little wave 

of grass ; 
The shadows of young maple leaves that lightly 

drift and pass ; 
A butterfly, pale-golden, like a wee rush-light with 

wings ; 
A bird somewhere ecstatic that hidden swings and 

sin^rs. 



A violet that nestles, cheek to the mellowed ground ; 
The humming of a happy brook about its daily 

round ; 
The woody breath of pines ; the smell of loosening 

sods ; 
Such simple links of being ; such common things of 

God's. 

This side, the sob of longing, the drip of lonesome 

tears ; 
The broken cry "Thy will be done," sweet to the 

angels' ears ; 



164 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The moan of riven hearts, of life's best life he- 
re a ven ; 

The silence vast and voiceless ; — but the other side 
is Heaven. 

How often for the children we've planned a sweet 

surprise ! 
So God awhile keeps Heaven, and locks it from our 

eyes. 
I think when opening inward, a door like this for me 
Uncloses through the daisies and beckons quietly, 

I shall be like the children for wonderment and 

bliss ; 
I shall thank God who kept me a secret sweet as 

this. 
So on this side I ponder and smile a little even, 
To watch the rippling grass, and think — the other 

side is Heaven. 



A LITTLE CHILD IN HEAVEN. 

" Gracious God, make room for another little child in Heaven." 

Oh ! how do you think it is up there 
When a child gets home to Heaven, 

So little dust on his forehead fair, 
So little to be forgiven ? 

Would the small, white feet leave one muddy track 
On that shining, golden floor 



AT NIGHT. 165 

Though they stepped unwashed, from the journey 
back, 
Through the wondrous, opening door ? 

Are those who were mothers and left behind 

Their little ones when they died. 
Most glad to see him, most tender-kind ? 

Do they want him closest beside ? 

And those r/^/A/-angels, who learned the ways 

Of Heaven before he came, 
Do they lead him their paths, teach him their lays, 

And make him in all the same ? 

But He who is the Lord of the place, 

Of Him none need to guess ; 
Have we not heard His ways of grace. 

With the children He took to bless ? 

That welcoming look, that caressing hand 

He will keep not back in His home. 
And even " babes " there will understand 

His " Little children, come ! " 



AT NIGHT. 



Would you call it a thing for dreams 

As she sits in the moon-lit door ? 
Only a girl's hat broad and brown. 
Only a boy's hat torn in the crown, 
Carelessly flung on the floor. 



l66 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 

Only a girl's hat, broad and brown, 
Moist from the warm, wee head ; 
Stuck full of daisies half falling out, 
A twisted ribbon winding about, 
A string that's held by a thread. 

Only a boy's hat torn in the crown. 

With a ragged, rolling brim ; 
Good for a basket, good for a ball, 
Dipper, or boat, or mug, that's all. 

It counts all the same to him. 

Who can think as a mother can, 

And fancy as mothers will ? 
Over the clover the soft winds sweep. 
But the restless children are lying asleep, 

And the little brown house is still. 

Docile as lambs that nestle in fold. 

Her fingers together creep ; 
Her eyes grow shady with tender tears. 
And what she whispers the Lord who hears, 

In His large love shall keep. 



MANY FLOCKS, ONE FOLD. 

Fast the twilight falls ; the lady 
At her window lifts the blind ; 

From its height sees herdsmen going, 
Sheep and cattle homeward wind ; 



MANY FLOCKS, ONE FOLD. 16/ 

Sees the mother call her children, 

Let them in and shut the gate, 
Sees the lamp begin the glimmer, 

Sees the laborer last and late. 

Then the little brook sings louder, 
Then the stars shine in their place, 

And she wonders, from her window 
Leaning with a shining face, — 

" From the golden heights of Heaven, 
Where the dear, home-lights are burning, 

Must it not be sweet to watch them, 
Sit and watch the flocks returning ? 

" Through the winding ways they traverse, 

Over mount and over meadow, 
Threading through the sunny uplands, 

Wading through the gulfs of shadow. 

" From north and south and east and west, 

How they glisten as they gather, 
And at last in fold together, 

Find one kingdom of the Father. 

" Ah ! we go all day asunder ; 

By and by, at sunset gold, 
Heaven will hold us all in safety — 

Though so many flocks, one fold." 



1 68 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE REASON. 

Walking, with careful foot, 

That city set for sleep, 
I wondered why, so late, 

Two roses, crimsoned deep 
With fading summer's blush, 

'Mid leaves else empty grew ; 
I strayed a few steps on, 

And then I knew. 

Since, in the long, thin grass, 

A low, small stone showed gray ; 
It bore two baby names, 

Twin lambs upon it lay. 
Somebody's darlings there 

Were cradled long ago. 
And mother's tears wet their 

Turf now untracked, I know. 

Was it kind Nature's plan — 

Sweet mother of us all — 
That from June's vanished wealth 

Had made this brief recall ? 
Or had some angel thought. 

And did the dear Lord care, 
To see those petals open. 

To have them scatter there 1 

For to my thought half-spelt, 
It read like this : A sign 



ECONOMY. 169 

Thus God will ne'er forget 

Graves where sleep mine or thine, 

Though our guard near be ended, 
Though we be far away. 

He thinks and sends His flowers there, 
May be, like this, to-day. 

So, very choice thy fragrance, 

O " Rose above the mold," ~ 

Over the two lambs lying 

Safe in their peaceful fold. 
Thine is ethereal message. 

Breath of that Garden where 
These mated babes together 

A bloom immortal wear. 



ECONOMY. 



" O GOOD my friend," said the preacher grave, 
" Your garments are soiled and rent ; 

They are too thin for our searching winds 
And surely such as cannot be meant 

To every stress of wear and tear 
Thus daily to be lent. 

" I see that walking about your house 

Full often they catch and tear, 
For your work-day's strain, its common cares. 

They are little worth to wear ; 



170 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Then where is the garb you bear to church 
That aye looks so strong and fair ? " 

I said, " It is true I have fine robes 

In lavender laid away, 
But things that are fit for Sunday, sir, 

Will never do ev'ry day. 
I know, indeed, you are wise to preach 

And to teach us how to pray. 

" You've only to sit and think, dear sir, 

And con o'er the Holy Book, 
But women, you see, must sweep and dust, 

Tend the whole house, mend and cook, 
So the good Lord pardon us herein. 

With so many ways to look. 

" 'Tis true these garments are not so clean, 

They are apt, I own, to fray ; 
Still, economy must last through the week 

And then on the Sabbath day 
I can sit in church and hear you preach. 

Brave in good attire and gay." 

But the preacher smiled a sober smile, 
" Good woman, then, if I may. 

Let me see those garments that you keep 
In lavender laid away." 

I thought when he saw my goodly robes 
He could have no more to say. 



TO WAKE AND REMEMBER. I /I 

But when he held them up to the light 

Lo ! many a stain of mold, 
And the busy moth had feasted long 

In every careful fold, 
Nor had I dreamed that such folds could turn 

So tarnished, and dull and old. 

" House wife," said the preacher, slow and kind, 

" Does your economy pay ? 
God never meant faith, love, hope and peace 

To be laid folded away ; 
He would have you wear them constantly, 

Yes, wear them every day." 



TO WAKE AND REMEMBER. 

When the lithe, crouching shadows with fugitive 

feet 

Flee swift to their covert, to hide in their lair. 

While the great, unlit earth in the chill of the dawn 

Lies still in the twilight, and haggard and bare, 

To wake and remember ! 

No bird with a song stirring yet in the leaves. 
No foot in the house stepping light on the floor; 

Then out of thy strange, foreign glamours, O Sleep ! 
With faint, failing spirit, with heart-sick'ning sore, 
To wake and remember ! 



1/2 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

To wake and remember ! 
It may be the hands folded meekly last night, 

And the shoulders grown used where the burden 
had lain, 
But to each day new-born the old anguish awakes, 
With the same scarlet terror, the same throbbing 
pain. 

Yet read thou a parable here full of peace ; 

Is thy waking so bitter ? oh ! then doubly sweet 
At the angels' good morning, all grief overpast, 

To wake satisfied at the lovely Christ's feet, 
To wake and remember ! 



GLIMPSE. 



From low horizon's twilight eaves 
Where brooding shadow sits and weaves, 
The meshes of the mist dropped down 
And hid the lights of tower and tOAvn. 

Far off the rustling, restless sea 
Upon the beach trode heavily ; 
The coming rain, all thick with musk, 
Sent close, faint smells across the dusk. 

One kindly door half-open swung, 
And in the shimmer outward flung, 
Red woodbine like some beacon glowed, 
The damp path gleamed, and sweeter showed 



LAJIGE ENOUGH FOR TWO. 1/3 

A cradled babe, a pictured wall, 
A shining floor, and fair and tall, 
The mother where she called away 
Her ling'ring children from their play. 

A stranger, passing by unheard. 
Went ploddif% on, and left no word ; 
Like fluttering wing of wounded bird 
The dead leaves at his footstep stirred. 

The wind piped loud, the rain drummed low, 
And last the city rose, aglow 
With thousand lights across her gloom, 
Like some dark shrub, of wondrous bloom. 

For him no waiting hearth burned warm, 
Yet with a smile he walked the storm ; 
It was a picture never hung. 
It was a song that was not sung. 

But set to dreams of Heaven he kept 
The babe that whitely lay and slept, 
The climbing vine, the tidy floor, 
The mother standing: at the door. 



LARGE ENOUGH FOR TWO. 
I. 

So small a house ! — a curve or two, 
An ansfle in the sun ; 



174 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

A yellow front, a low broad wing, 
A porch may be, the simplest thing, 
And windows close but one. 

II. 

But one with silver laces in, 

Beaming, and clear and fair,"*^ 
This one held out to be filled up 
With the spilt sunbeams, like some cup, 
Cr)'stal, and spun of air. 

III. 

So quaint a house ! — it looked beside 

The drapery of land ; 
The orchards ripe, the meadows wide. 
The grain-fields, with their rendered tide, 
And all that mellow country side 

That folded every hand. 



Only a yellow feather, dropped 

Between the bronze and blue ; 
And yet a subtle thought we caught, 
From roof and door, so plainly wrought, 

But large enough for two. 

V. 

There's room for wings to fold or flit — 

Ah me ! — as wings will do ; 
For griefs and goods, and cheers and cares, 
For joy and pain — for songs and prayers. 



THE PROTEST. 1/5 

In any house like this of theirs, 
That's large enough for two. 

VI. 

There's room for angels, as they come. 

To pass upon the stair — 
There's room for many hopes and tears, 
For garnered sheaves and blasted ears, 
And the great loom that spins our years — 

Oh ! yes — that loom stands there ! 

VII. 

With iron shoes, we hurried on, 

And passed ; you never knew ; 
The world is large and raftered high. 
But God keeps places — glad am I, 
Amidst vast space, both side His sky, 

Warm, safe and small, /or two ! 



THE PROTEST. 

" It doth not yet appear what we shall be.'' 

I FELT dear Love about me close 

Her strong and clinging arms ; there rose 

Before I could to her control 

Resign in conscience all my soul 

The protest of an honest mind, 

" Love thinks," I said, " in me to find 

Rare qualities her own sweet thought 



176 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Has from imagination wrought. 
She loves me as the thing her love 
Deserves to have, nor waits to prove 
The thing I am, and gauge by it ; 
Love me not so ; I am not fit ! " 

Love, dear Love ! she loved me still, 
Naught I could say would change her will 
To love me, love me, love me so 

1 was abashed ; I did not know 
How I could undeserving bear 
That disproportioned love unfair. 
I told her o'er and o'er how I 
Before her with humility 
Disowned the gift of grace she would 
Ascribe to me ; I was not good. 

She only smiled ; what could I do ? 

And would she love me if she knew } 

O Love, what could I say to you. 

Giving me so much more than due ? 

Through autumn woods I went my way 

To seek the church one smiling day, 

And in the outer courts I stopped 

To see bright leaves the maple dropped 

Outside the door, the while inside 

High, tinted wdndows scattered wide 

On aisle and chancel, from the same 

Rich god of light, his gold and flame. 

" Thus Love," I sighed, " with her own hues 

Transfigures me, then raptured views 

What she calls me — poor Love, blind Love ; 

When all is hers she doth approve." 



THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE. I'J'J 

Did angels soundless cross the floor 
To find me by the shady door ? 
" It doth not yet appear to me," 
The still air said, " what we shall be ; " 
And then my heart leaped up to read 
How right Love is, how ne'er is need 
That we should criticize and fret 
When Love interprets ; we forget 
She is the teacher, we but learn ; 
She's never wrong ; she can discern. 
Love, you are right ! Yes, Love, love me ; 
You love the thing that is to be. 

When I should run I often halt, 
When I should soar fall into fault ; 
But now our eyes can meet, for, dear, 
I know it doth not yet appear 
What I shall be ; I think amends 
I can make then to all my friends. 
I'll take your love now, without fear, 
In pawn vmtil it doth appear 
What I shall be. So, dear, love me ; 
Love me as some day I shall be ; 
And all this poured-out love some day 
Perfected, strong, I will repay. 



THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE. 
I. 

"I WOULD paint her," said the woman, 
" With the light upon her wings. 



1/8 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Caught where palest tinge of morning 
One faint, eastern glimmer flings, 

Yet there should be heavy shadows 
Left about her lamp-like face ; 

She should seem to watch for daylight 
Waiting, leaning from her place. 

" Some rare pathos I would fashion 

In the meekly-drooping head 
As of long and weary vigil, 

Chilling dews and midnights fled. 
Steadfast still with eyes of yearning 

I would have her constant stand ; 
Listening, harkening, poised expectant, 

White, shut lilies in her hand." 

II. 
" I would paint her," said the artist, 

" Just a woman, slight like you ; 
Burnished hair, but lightly tethered. 

Eyes more full of shade than hue. 
Lips half-smiling, brow of quiet, 

And some soft and simple gown 
Fit to handle and unrustling. 

Made like yours, I think, of brown. 

" There should be a rough road winding 
Towards a sunset burning low, 

One far gate, a dream of frost-work 
Whitely set against the glow ; 

And the little, hindering children 
Should those hasting feet beset. 



A RUST OF DIANA. 1 79 

Clinging, wearied, to her garments, 
Lifting wistful eyes tear-wet. 

" With her hands held out for helping, 

And her smile so strangely sweet, 
Not a glint of crown, nor shimmer 

Of white robes upon the street, 
Needs them not to teach the children 

Reverently to say some day — 
* Surely God's own angel Patience 

Lifted us along that way ! ' " 



A BUST OF DIANA. 

Diana, in a woman's room. 

High-niched, looks down the perfumed gloom 

As held there by some strange, white charm, 

Serenely chaste, serenely calm. 

Daughter of Jove, what seems to you 

Her chamber hung in white and blue, 

Her ribbons, trinkets, laces, rings, 

Her pretty, trivial, tasteful things ? 

And what would judge thy steadfast gaze 

Of her life here, its summer days ? 

Perchance the hymn or alphabet 

She'll teach ; some ache, or fear, or fret 

Brought here, she'll gently soothe away ; 

But for the rest, the world would say. 

She sews, she sleeps, she sings : she lends 

An ear to gossips and to friends ; 



l80 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Tends children, cares for flowers, books, e'en 

For small, dumb pets; — what thinks't, O queen?' 

Thou who didst never bend before 

The yoke of Love, mark, furthermore, 

This woman can be swayed to smile 

By one sweet word ; she'll weep, ere while, 

As easily for blame ; I own 

'Tis love she most craves, love, alone ; 

(That very tricksy love that you 

Disdained) ; — so simple women do ! 

I know not, Huntress, be it scorn 

Or clemence that thy brow adorn ; 

But whate'er be thy just esteem 

Superb thy carriage, I deem. 

And steadfast toward this woman mate ; 

A woman's life, a woman's fate 

Thou payest its divinest claim. 

Calm, reverent silence^ — in God's name Diana ! 



FOLDING AND LAYING AWAY. 

Folding and laying away. 

Now is the time of the year, 
For empty the gardens and orchards, 

Frost and the north winds are here. 
So the careful and prudent housewife 

Gathers the summer array, 
Skillfully fingering, busily 

Folding and laying away. 



FOLDING AND LAYING AWAY. l8l 

The little best clothes of the children, 

With edges, embroideries, lace, 
All prim, clean and stiff in their creases 

Pile up one orderly place ; 
Here lie a girl's prettiest muslins 

Of lavender, blue, and rose ; 
There's the dress that my lady likes best, - 

Ah ! the secret who knows, who knows ? 

This sea-green she had for the sea-side ; 

The pink she had for the ball ; 
But the white, ruched, ruffled, and pleated, 

So foamy and fine of fall, 
Is haunted by June scents of blossoms, 

More subtly than all the rest ; 
Well, heaping like drifted-in leaves. 

How fast fills the great cedar chest ! 

Some fragment of psalm softly over 

I hear the good housewife croon ; 
But they're not the words in the hymn-book 

She sets to that old, sweet tune. 
She's saying, " O Friend in Heaven, 

How I'm thinking of you to-day, 
As alone in the dusty attic 

I'm folding and laying away ! 

" How little I know, my beloved. 
How ill I can say what I mean ! 

But I fall wondering, wondering. 
These homeliest cares between ; 



1 82 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 

When the mortal put on immortal 
And the angels brought you there 

For your heavenly dress the same pure white 
That they of God's household wear, 

"You slipped off the loves and the cares 

That, as it seemed before, 
In an every-day close communion 

Like a common garb we bore. 
And are they now waste and forgotten, 

Never of use again, 
These traveling robes of a pilgrim 

Who has reached her home since then ? " 

May it be that, like last year's raiment 

Over them angels say. 
As we do, — " Another year," — gently, 

Fold them and lay them away ? 
Bodies, like frayed summer garments 

We know when put by God keeps ; 
And when His word all-revealing 

Sounds o'er earth's heights and deeps, 

*' ' Fold them up as a vesture ! ' 

May-be poor souls will find 
That the infinite Lord has saved their all 

And left nothing out of mind. 
In the universe no little thought there is 

Or trust, too small and fine 
For Him to bring forth, not lost, that day — 

Even of yours and mine 1 " 



KNITTING WORK. I83 



KNITTING WORK. 

The great lamp in the west burns low ; 

Once more a finished day- 
It's widths, loose-meshed of yellow light, 

Binds off to selvage gray. 
All's quiet in one little room, 

Close by whose windows grow 
Chrysanthemums in late, white bloom, 

That catch the last sun-glow. 

All's quiet, save the ticking clock. 

The cat, but half-awake. 
And now and then small silver sounds 

That clicking needles make. 
Over and under, through and out, 

Row after row is done ; 
Over and under, through and out. 

Another row's begun. 

" The days grow short again, and cold, 

Colder than used to be, 
And now it must be time for snow, 

The clouds look so to me. 
Thanksgiving comes to-morrow ; 

These stockings must be done — 
Ready for Benjamin's little Tom, 

My youngest's youngest son. 

" He's big as John was when he died ; 
Poor Johnnie ! he'd have been 



184 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

An old man now — ah, well ! I know 

To murmur is a sin, 
And then his father loved him best, 

And none of the others died, 
Three of them left — and should I grudge 

That one is at his side ? " 

Over and under, through ; — "I know 

That Reuben's wife is good ; 
She makes plum puddings, well, perhaps 

Much better than I could. 
Joe says, ' Puddings that taste like mine 

He never thinks to see ; ' 
If Jane will use nutmeg for spice 

I own its spoilt for me. 

" In the old times, their father now, 

How he'd indulge my whim ! 
Here's a stitch dropped — how dark it is ! 

My eyes are dull and dim. 
I'm getting old ; I'll go to him 

Some day, not far away." 
Her Past, her ball of sombre yarn — 

The old wife knits her gray. 

But young eyes do not heed, though now 

The daylight dies out quite ; 
The girl is quite content to knit 

By hearth-fire's flickering light, 
Ivory needle, hand as white. 

Ply swiftly-rippling threads 



KNITTING WORK. 185 

From flossy, mossy zephyr skeins 
Of shaded, gorgeous reds. 

Ah ! on her finger, firefly-like, 

Something keeps glittering ; 
And then she smiles, a smile to match 

The shining, changeful thing. 
" Yes, surely he will come to-night ; 

And will he like the new 
Soft cashmere dress I mean to wear ? 

At least his favorite 's blue, 

" So those shall be the ribbons tied 

About my throat and hair ; 
I don't quite think, though, he shall see 

How very much I care ! 
Ah ! if I told him that I shrink, 

This first Thanksgiving Day, ' 

From meeting all his kinsfolk grand, 

My Love, what would he say ? 

*' And yet I can be brave for him ; 

They shall not need to call 
His choice aught more than maiden-shy, 

And none among them all 
But for his sake " — her blushes come 

And go, in ebb and tide — 
" Some day, some day I'll learn to love, 

As they shall love his bride." 

What dreams she dreams, what castles builds, 
How counts her hopes unsaid, 



l86 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

While in the twilight's leisure calm 

The maiden knits her red ! 
Grave threads or gay, God take the work, 

Accept, approve each one, 
When it has grown too dark to see, 

And knitting-work is done ! 



TIRED LITTLE SHOES. 

FOR FOUR VERY LITTLE BOYS AND ONE LITTLE 
GIRL. 

[ The first hoy holds in his hand a pair of little shoes ; passing: tJiem, at 
tJie close of his stanza, to the next, and so on till tlie little girl takes them, 
putting tliem away in a corner, carefully atid tenderly .'\ 

FIRST BOY. 

These little shoes are very tired, 

Unless I've guessed far wrong ; 
They've been so busy, worked so hard, 

And traveled all day long, 
Tired little shoes ! 

SECOND BOY, 

Trot, trot, trot, pattering round the house, 

Through walk and garden plot, 
In the chip-yard, by the barn. 

To the neighbors', trot, trot, trot, 
Tired little shoes J 

THIRD BOY. 

Tramp, tramp, tramp, up the road and down ; 
For daisies in the lane. 



CALLING THE ROLL. 187 

After pebbles in the brook, 
Meeting papa at the train, 
Tired little shoes ! 

FOURTH BOY. 

Run, run, run, hunting butterflies, 

Rolling the hoop for fun. 
Playing wagon, " horse " and " catch," 

Chasing Rover, run, run, run. 
Tired little shoes ! 

LITTLE GIRL. 

Now, is it strange, that after this 

The shoes should want at night 
To keep quite still and rest themselves ? 

And is it more than right. 
Tired little shoes ? 

And yet, the very boy who wore 

And used them all day, said 
He didn't want to have them off 

And go himself to bed ! — 
Poor little shoes ! 



CALLING THE ROLL. 

The school-room humming, humming, 
Like the wheel all day at the mill. 

Grew orderly then and quiet 
And its nestling children still ; 



l88 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Through the western windows slanting 

On the floor of dusty pine, 
Dropped sheaf-like sprays of mellow, 

Yellow, ripe sunshine. 

Flowers on the desk were fading, 

The books were all replaced, 
The map on the board was blurring, 

The sums were half erased, 
Hands folded, day's work ended, 

They sat in long, prim rows 
And heard the old clock's ticking 

Louder and louder prose. 

The boys had chalky jackets ; 

You may remember how 
The girls wore their white aprons 

And calicoes, e'en now ! 
Half shy and half coquettish 

Through loose locks falling down 
The blue eyes stole thwart glances 

Towards bolder black and brown. 

And the teacher called the roll, 

The school-day's last concern ; 
Exchanging challenge, answer. 

Through well-known names in turn. 
" Present ! " — blithe eyes uplifted ; 

" Absent'''' — here no reply ; 
" Tardy ! " — voiced lower, shame-faced ! 

So passed the roll-call by. 



CALLING THE ROLL. 189 

Ah ! now Time's steady ticking 

Has brought to afternoon 
The school-room's restless children — 

Life's afternoon, thus soon ! 
And now in gathering twilight, 

And now with chastened soul, 
Waiting, looking, listening, 

How memory calls the roll ! 

And who in the great world's task-room 

Cries '■'■Present'''' from his place, 
Lifting through toil and trouble 

Still brave and steadfast face ? 
Ah ! who is written " Absent .? " 

About his name the still 
Strange hush of death may linger 

Of failure, or worse ill. 

And who the laggard " Tardy " 

Against himself records — 
Pale memory knows ; she hears response 

Plainer than answered words — 
Needs to be glad or sorry. 

All tenderness the soul 
That hearkens down the distance 

When memory calls the roll! 

Life's afternoon slow waning. 

Veers towards its sunset goal ; 
Think not to pass unchallenged, 

God calls at last the roll ! 



190 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

No voice shall there be missing 
No name shall slip forgot ; 

Great Master, strictly marking, 
Severely judge us not. 



SILENCE. 



I. 

We are but little islands in the Silence 

That sucks and settles round us like the sea ; 
But drop plaint, song or deed ; — then, see how 

swift 
The silences again above it drift. 

And cover, smooth as ever, Has Been, and Shall 
Be. 

II. 

Or, list that strange sea lapping in the dark ! 

Then loud the subtle currents pulse, and near ; 
When in the night enclosed as a shut box. 
Sleepless we lie and long to pick the locks, 

By some new, nameless sense the soul can hear. 

III. 

And, at the last. Silence submerges all ; 

The loftiest head, the proudest work, swept o'er 
By its high tide, sink down and disappear ; 
Yet drifting, foreign wood and weeds do cheer 

Our souls with certain signs of some rich shore. 



TO A NEW FRIEND. I9I 

IV. 

Then why should we so question Silence, — fear 

Its dumb ways, and dread its deeps to dare ? 
Have we, Columbus-like, no yearnings grand 
To be borne on and find that untried Land ? 
Silence, we trust thee ; only bear us there ! 



TO A NEW FRIEND. 

I STAND before this word costly and good, 
The small word " Friend," as might have stood 
The ardent suitor for fair Portia's hand 
Before the casket fated to command 
Him direful failure or full-crowned success ; 
My look, my touch be reverent no less. 

For I am 'ware it is too choice a thing 
For any light or careless fingering ; 
E'en though it should be aye denied to me 
To fit the lock with the right, subtle key. 
Its very outline of a grace severe. 
And workmanship so exquisite appear 
That I am glad even to come so near. 

Nor can one force it open ; more like that 
Night-blooming flower, unfolding noiseless at 
The hour instinct points out on her dumb clock, 
This casket of itself expands. 



192 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The lock 
Has spells, and to rude haste or selfish greed 
Would solely yield the fool's own face, indeed. 

friend, new friend, where (of thy grace) I've set 
This gift most softly down, I will not let 

Aught carelessly intrude ; oft, day and night, 

1 shall frequent its shrine, to leave a light 
Caress, — a kiss, — or flower, — untarnished so 
Keeping it always ; glad in that I know 
Thou trustest me so far ; not over-bold. 

Yet, if I may hope, hoping to behold 

At last the one "fair counterfeit," the pelf 

Most preciously enclosed, — 

Lady, thyself ! 



WAITING FOR THE DECISION.* 

(November 9th, 1S76.) 

The drums were ready to beat 

For a victory hard bought. 
They were ready to regret 

Whose loss was the battle fought. 
When a strange, dramatic pause 

Upon the nation fell ; 
The drum-beat arrested hung, 

The murmuring hushed as well, 

* Referrinc; to the Presidential election. 



OUT OF THE DEPTHS. IQS 

And, holding their breath, men all 

In a common, tense suspense, 
Bent ear to the telegraph wire 

To count the land's pulses thence. 
'Tis the moment of tableau 

When the group are motionless ; 
And a world looks on with awe 

To read what it may express. 

'Tis the second when the sun 

Prints the photograph ; — as though 
Spell-bound in their places, men 

Grave, silent and stirless grow. 
Ah ! clear will the photograph 

Stand out at last, and out-wear 
In history long the lives 

Of those who figure there ! 

The drum is ready to beat, 

But the lifted hand is stayed ; 
The dance is ready to tread. 

Yet tarry the feet of the maid ! 
'Tis the moment of tableau, 

'Tis the photographic pause ; 
Will the verdict be of woe ? 

Shall the verdict be applause ? 



OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 

When with sore certainty I knew, 
Beloved, that your way led through 



194 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Strange places of the earth, and dark, — 
Too lone for speech, too deep for spark 
Of torch to bear you company, 
By wilds that took you far from me, — 
Holding my very breath for you. 
As they for life who listen do, 
I seemed to lean and hearken — yet 
Not desolately hopeless let 
To listen there. 

I thought and thought 

How the bold diver oft has brought 

Things precious from the vast, dread deep 

That holds such mysteries in keep ; 

I thought what wondrous glimpses he 

Has had of rare things under sea. 

By this more perilous descent 
I know might for my love be meant 
Gains choicer, rarer far, than this, 
And she is never one to miss 
All subtlest, noblest meanings ; so 
In my stilled heart the strong hopes grow, 
That with full hands, with thankful eyes, 
At last restored, my love shall rise 
Out of the depths. 



LULLABY. 



Lightly rocks my bonny boat, 
A little idle thing. 



LULLABY. 195 

A bird of folded wing, 
With happy, careless swing, 
Where summer sunsets fling 
Their wealth of warmth and gold, 
Their purple breadths unrolled ! 
Light rocks my bonny boat, 

Empty, light and free, 
Under caressing sun, 
Upon the sleeping sea. 
Sleep in my arms of love, oh sleep, sweet baby mine 
Thy mother's breast thy sea, her smile thy warm 
sunshine ! 

Glad rocks my bonny boat ! 
Across the wide blue bay 
All through the glowing day 
Come glittering as they may 
The sparkle-ships so gay ; 
A sunbeam each for crew, 
Their freight, spice-breezes new ; 
Glad rocks my bonny boat, 

And listening, half-asleep. 
Cares nothing for their wayward news, 
Cares nothing for the deep. 
Hush, hush, my little one, I hold thee close to me ; 
Thy dreamy, deep-blue eyes are drooping wearily. 



Calm rocks my bonny boat. 

By the light waves caressed 
In its safe and sunny nest 



196 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Within the harbor's breast — 
But ah ! I tremble lest 
At some stern future call 
Danger, storm, wreck befall ! 
Still calm my bonny boat 

Rocks itself, half-asleep ; 
O'er sun and storm One broods 
The same ; o'er port and deep. 
So rest, my darling, rest, in calm, untroubled sleep ; 
For life, for death, forever, thy soul is His to keep ! 



THE NIGHT ROUND. 

I. 
The snow came down in the night ; 
A beautiful work was done 
Quickly and well ; yet none 
A careful oversight kept, 
For all the world, tired out, slept, 
While the snow came down in the night. 

Then the earth, so soiled yestreen, 
Was made more shining and clean 
Than mortals could fancy white 
Save for the unearthly sight. 
And nothing so poor and bare 
But put on the royal wear. 
Nor humblest roof in the town 
Uninvested with richest down. 
When the snow came down in the night. 



THE NIGHT ROUND. IQ/ 



The nurse, on her midnight round, 
Soft-slippered and without sound 
About the hospital crept, — 
While the patients restlessly slept, — 
Smoothing the counterpanes, — tost 
By dreamers but half-way lost 
To the old pain's aching sense. 
She passed by a window ; — thence 
Showed dim mounds half-forgot, — 
A burial-place, where not 
One straying foot would care 
To seek an entrance there. 

But the snow came down in the night ; 

Like the night-watch on her round 

It walked the burying-ground ; 

With tender touch and light 

Laid each counterpane smooth and white, 

And crossed no mound, unless 

With a reverent caress. 

So the night-watch went her way 
By her lantern's flickering ray. 
Smiling to think, though her eyes 
Met ev'rywhere some pain's guise, 
How faithfully all who slept 
Unconscious, were watched and kept. 
Her part was a restless charge. 
How troubled, — alas, how large ! — 



198 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

But for all would come transfer, 

Transfer both to them and her, 

And there in the Silent Ward, 

Like an angel from the Lcrd, 

How the snow came down in the night ! 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINT SUFFERING. 
(Summer of iSSi.) 

They listened round the world each day ; 

What the next bulletin would say ; 

They calculated, in suspense, 

'Twixt trembling hope, and fear intense ; — 

Pliant to ev'ry change were men 

As sympathetic women then. 

What was this touched the whole world so ? 
What deemed they worth such joy or woe ? 
The course of battles? — Nay, not now. 
Though War had laurelled once his brow ; 
The veerings of the helm of State ? — 
Not now : palsied its issues great. 
'Tis but a sick-room nations take 
To fix their eyes upon ; they wake. 
Watch, weep, and pity, for the sake 
Of one sick man's peril and ache. 

Not that good soldier he had fought. 
Not that wise statesmen he had thought, 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINT SUFFERING. I99 

Thus the wide kingdoms touched and moved 
To make him prayed for, yearned for, loved ! 
Mankind the Sufferer loves ; and kin 
All human hearts are made therein ; 
The Sufferer by his pain alone 
Becomes of sufferers claimed their own, 
And so the King wins to His throne. 

Army of Martyrs, therefore, who 
On countless sick-beds suffer too, 
Unknown to fame, noticed by few, 
Communion, fellowship, with you 
This hero had whom all men praise. 
Like you endured he tortured days 
And fevered nights without complaint, 
Bearing the Soldier through the Saint. 

And you, whose sickness you have thought 
Must make you useless, your life naught ; 
Oh ! read, illuminated here. 
How otherwise to God appear 
You and your life. Of ev'ry fight 
This soldier made, shines one so bright 
As this upon the sick-bed ? Where 
Showed he so real and brave as there ? 
Deserves it not the palms and bays 
The people bring who stand to gaze ? 
Your life may lack the gaze ; yet do 
The palms and bays belong to you ; 
And angels, when they come some night 
To ope for you that new Daylight 



200 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

They did for him, will be as right 

To hymn o'er you, " Fought a good fight ! " 



FRIEND, OR ENEMY? 

" Advance, Friend, and give the countersign ! " 

Strange Death, so swift, resistless, still ! 

Through centuries unknown 
Men have watched helplessly his will 

Wrought out from hut to throne. 

No sound, no step, but lo ! all done ; 

Glad eyes dulled to the light, 
For love and life left us alone 

Meek marble cold and white. 

Yet when on yours Death lays his hand 

It seems as bitter new 
As though in every age and land 

He had hurt none but you, 

" O robber ! enemy ! " dares Love 
At first shriek out in vain ; — 

(Poor Love, stung blind ! — I think above 
They're patient with his pain ; 

His pain, his passion and his heat, 

Rebellious, ignorant ;) — 
But wait ! the months and seasons fleet 

To fix in adamant. 



FRIEND, OR ENEMY ? 20I 

And Love sees toil, or shame, or grief, 

Set seal on closest friends, 
Sees his beloved past his relief, 

His best shape worthless ends. 

Then comes, somewhere his life along, 

To cry with chastened heart, 
O Death, how sweet, how safe, how strong, 

How beautiful thou art ! 

My holy dead I well may leave 

Securely in thy trust, 
Though flesh may quail, though heart may faint. 

Before thine awful Must. 

For they are safer far with thee, 

Death, serene and vast. 
Than either with mad life or me, 

1 own it at the last. 

Ay, safer ; I must not complain ; 

Though thou deep mystery be 
We know nor pain again, nor stain, 

Can touch them gone with thee. 

And life, spite its feigned frankness, bears 

The mystery, not that clew. 
While, though /spilt my blood for theirs, 

I'm but life's plaything, too. 

O Death, how sweet, how safe, how strong. 
How beautiful thou art ! 



202 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

I giiess thee angel now ; ere long, 
When I in turn depart, 

I shall know all ; and by each one 
Who went to Heaven before, 

What they have seen so long, and done, 
Sit down and talk it o'er. 



JUST THE WAY A WOMAN WILL TALK. 

So it seems that it's settled for this year ; 

Town voted " No License " they say ; 
I own I feel prouder to live in 't 

This noon, than I did yesterday. 
Well, I said so, at breakfast this morning, 

And Eben threw right down his fork, 
And says he, pretty crusty and quick-like, 

" Just the way that a woman will talk ! " 

Then he and the boys j'ined together, 

How taxes were up high enough. 
And now I'd see piled on a thousand 

Or two, to pay for this stuff. 
The traffic would go on, — not a doubt on 't, — 

The rum-sellers banded, of course, 
Only now what they'd had to pay for 't 

Would be lost from the scant public purse. 

" The way that a woman will talk ! " says they, 
Between the hot coffee and cakes, 



JUST THE WAY A WOMAN WILL TALK. 203 

" Not the least sense in practical business, 
Swallowed up by a notion she takes ! " 

Neighbor, I'm an old-fashioned woman ; 
Thinks I, let 'em talk if they will ; 

I passed down the cream and the doughnuts, 
And jest held my tongue and kep' still. 

Yes, only an old-fashioned woman ; 

That's all I pretend to be ; 
Ain't learn'd ; dread the idee of votin' ; 

Swore " Obey " when Priest Young married me ; 
But, for all, how a woman will talk 

I ain't afraid nor ashamed to show ; 
I declare, I feel kin to the wisest. 

And queen with the queen thinking so ! 

That saving and losing of money 

Isn't a question to last ; 
That voting iox principle purely 

Is a vote for eternity cast ; 
That it's grand for a town to be standing 

In attitude honest, well-known, 
Saying loud, " Since this practice is deadly, 

We'll act so, not talk so alone." 

God prosper all earnest endeavor 

To make Law and Authority save 
The child from a drunken father, 

The drunkard from worse than the grave. 
God bless always humanity's strugglings 

To fly upward, or creep, or walk ! 



204 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Yes, I say I am glad, I am proud — 
That's the way a woman will talk ! 



GOOD-NIGHT. 
To A. B. A. 

Good-night ! — 
That we are parting scarce we take note, 
And yet all noiseless and swift we float 
Each way far different and remote. 
Sleep, like a ferry-man in his boat 
Bears you away and comes-to take me, 
Nor do we meet once as on sail we 
The whole night long o'er that strange dim sea 
Where's haze, mist, mirage, but never sunlight ; 
Past many a vision and weird sight ! 
Ere we embark I wave you good-night ; — 

Good-night ! 

Good-night ! — 
We travel light on our little cruise, 
Without gold for fees, or stores to use. 
Or baggage for ballast ; strait and small 
Sleep's cushioned craft, and will hold of all 
A man's possessions and friendships none ; 
Each must go singly, as he begun. 
So nightly we, child-like, one by one 
Trust an unseen skill to steer us right. — 
The ferry-man give you sweet, smooth flight 
Across to Dawn's welcome cliffs of white ! 

Good-night ! 



EARLY CANDLE-LIGHT. 20$ 



EARLY CANDLE-LIGHT. 

Leave the curtain wide ; one star 

Looks so winningly from far ; 

Leave the needle in your seam ; 

Let me rest awhile and dream — 

(While your fingers the white keys 

Guide through old tunes,) — dreams like these 

Dreams of faces I have known, 
Some now here, but many gone ; 
Dreams of pictures I have seen; 
Dreams of poets ; dreams of green 
Murmurous pine woods, — how your song 
Seems with all these to belong ! 

Through the pattern on the wall 
New, fantastic patterns fall ; 
There, with half-shut eyes I see 
Wondrous, unknown tracery 
That o'er mystic doorways grows. 
Leading — ah ! who knows ? who knows ? 
And, bewitching, poised between, 
Merr)% elfish figures lean. 

The candle's flickering shine 
Twines in the shape of a vine 
Through the shadow of the room, 
And there, in that niche of gloom 
Flowers in a yellow bloom. 



206 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And drops like a spray of wheat 
At my statuette's white feet. 
Play "a psalm, the one most dear ; 
That will bring the children here ; 
Let me watch their reverent eyes 
And hands folded, white, child-wise, 
Clustering where the taper gleams, 
They sing softly; — this me seems 
Sweeter far than only dreams. 



A SONG IN THE NIGHT. 

From out the velvet drapery of gloom 
That fills at twilight all the unlit room, 
The singer's voice comes as in sweeter tune. 
The singer's song seems a far rarer rune. 

From out the night the lay of nightingale, 
The whip-poor-will's prolonged and plaintive wail, 
Win the ear strangely through the silent air, 
Where few would heed in daylight's gilded glare. 

So you, thro' midnight of your grief who fare, 
You in the sombre robes that mourners wear, 
May, passing, wake some soul to care and prayer 
Who would not turn to look upon the gay and fair. 

Sing on, dear heart, so patient in the dark ; 
Some one may hark who would not hear the lark; 
Play on, brave fingers feeling for the keys ; 
Some one of God's needs these notes, only these. 



HORIZON. 207 



HORIZON. 

I. 

In Pain. 

How dull the near horizon's line, — • 

One heavy leaden ring ! 
Yet stolidly the stalwart hills 

Shoulder the tarnished thing, 
And evenly on ev'ry hand 
Support its circlet where they stand. 

It holds the dusty daylight in, 

And air to last to-day, 
And roads that do not wind, and paths 

That cannot lose their way ; 
A few feet pass, a few grains grow, 
The field-flowers live, the four winds blow. 

And Life is like a ding}^ cup 

Of common, earthern ware. 
And Heart some puny insect left 

Wingless, to stifle there. 
Vain weariness to try to climb 
Or struggle, prisoner of time ! 

II. 

/;/ Paiiciicc. 

How calm a fillet on the brow 

Of hills, horizon rests ! 
Its silver rim with selvage fair 

My nestling valleys crests, 



208 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Where deep Avithin they hollowed rest, 
Thougli low and narrow, not unblest. 

From edge to edge, days come and go, 

And spill their sun between ; 
Like thistle-down, soft mists sail in, 

And, as from lands unseen 
Birds come and sing, strange sweet thoughts do, 
Beyond horizon floating through. 

So calmly 'neath its burnished brim 

Heart lies, and is content 
To wait awhile, and smile at all 

Dear guests the Lord has sent, 
In that fond hope to cross the stars, 
Sometime, beyond horizon bars. 



PREJUDGED. 



The doubtful balancings of some fine issue lay 
Upon your furthest, keenest sense a claim 

For honorable poise. To accurately weigh 
Aught capable of test so subtle, needs an aim 

Slow, careful, and self-concentrate, 

With quiet time to hesitate. 

But from the crowd comes up, asking no time to 
•• weigh, 

A verdict prompt and cheerful, ultimate, concise ; 



PREJUDGED. 209 

"He will do so; his reason this," these favored say, 

In no perplexity, nor needing to think twice, 
His choice they foreordain ; foreknow 
The 7-aison d''€tre ; all's easy so. 

In odd confusion stands a man before these free 
And easy confidants of Fate, quite helpless he, 
" We kno70," they say. Now he, he does not know. 
You see 
Theirs the advantage, then. How the event will 
be 
They've merely to declare. Before 
He speaks he's published broadcast o'er. 

They know! — The man has no defense that can 
prevent 
Prevision such as theirs. Half in humility 
And half amusement scans he his predicament ; 
Nor can one blame him if, with sense of outrage, 
he 
Should turn upon the easy crowd, 
So self-assured, and cry aloud, 

" There was a man once, who, apparently like you, 
His lord's mind took for granted ; he was sure he 
knew 
That mind, and that mind's will, and all that would 
ensue. 
I knezu thee, said this man, thai thou art hard ; — 
and, throu'rh 



2IO MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Being so sure, met doom as dire 
As any deliberate liar. 

" The insolence of being sure sometimes, it seems, 
Draws on itself surprise not to be coveted ; 

And he his neighbor's right of choice who so esteems 
A thing assumed, were better vexed like me in- 
stead 

By men who, unasked, sift his cares 

And coolly settle his affairs." 



A CAPTURE 



I CAUGHT it ; yet I am not proud, 

I have no smallest will 
To vaunt myself and seek applause 

For having displayed skill. 
It cost no skill ; the easiest thing 

In life it was to do ; 
I caught it without use of baits, 

Snares, nets, tricks old or new; 
And still, I am not vain of that, 

As maybe I have been 
Sometimes at a facility 

That made me quick to win. 

I caught it ; yet I am not proud, 
And you are quite unfair 

To say that I parade it, though, 
And show it everywhere. 



KEEPING AWAKE ON CHRISTMAS EVE, 211 

I'd rather not ; it's not my fault 

My capture will obtrude — 
Though 1 would hide it if I could — 

Persistently and rude. 
Oh ! who am I to wax elate 

And step braggart and bold ? 
I caught it, but am just as meek, 

For I have caught — a cold ! 



KEEPING AWAKE ON CHRISTMAS EVE. 

We shall keep awake, you know, 
Certainly all night long. And so 
To pass the time let us make believe ; — 
What would you do on Christmas eve 
If an angel should come and say, 
" You may do what you like, till way 
Up to the dawn of Christmas day, — 
You may play as ^we angels play ? " 

Oh ! if I could do as I would 

And play like the angels, I should 

Put back the white lilies that grew 

In the garden all summer through, 

And hang on the roses again, 

For they never have been here when 

We were having Christmas, and I 

Don't think it so fair ; do you ? And why ? 

But anyhow flowers are so queer ! 

I don't know exactly, my dear. 



212 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

But I think they only play dead, 
And would come to life if we said 
The right magic word, just as well 
For Christmas as summer. Don't tell ! 

What else would I do ? I would fling 

Gold dollars about, — and I'd sing 

This house full, the church full ; yes, stuf¥ 

Both so full there would be enough 

To last till another year came, — 

For sister declares it's a shame 

The way the choir sings. Then you see 

How nice it would be, thanks to me ! 

Oh ! yes, and I'd let out the Thing 

That lives in the sleigh-bells. They swing 

But you don't at all see the sound. 

It lives there inside. It is round, 

I always did think if I could 

Let out that shut-up Thing, I would I 

Think how much there would be to do ! 

And then, besides just me and you. 

There are people nobody knows — 

On Christmas eve I should know those ; — 

And people much older than we 

Who have no good times that I see ; — 

And so I would hurry away 

To the angel, I'm sure, and say, 

I have found more people ; oh ! please, 

Won't you make it as nice for these ! 



THE GIRLS AND THEIR HOODS. 213 

What a long while it is ! Perhaps 
We might take turns now and have naps ; 
But you take the first turn, because — 
Well — I cannot miss Santa Claus. 



Can she blame them to-night or deride 

Who listens unseen at their side 

In the Christmas eve's keen starlight ? 

No ; not on the Christ-child's own night 

For the sake of that little Child 

She but smiles as maybe they've smiled 

Who do always behold His face, 

And a rev'rent hush fills the place. 



THE GIRLS AND THEIR HOODS. 

Gray the cold skies are, wintry the weather ; 
What is this flutter of hues together 
That is not flaunt of garden nor feather ? — ■ 
Gay, little school-girls, dainty hoods under, 
Whence did you get your pattern, I wonder ? 
Enchanted I watch you, puzzling to think 
Where I have seen such blue, cardinal, pink. 

O dear little school-girls under your hoods ! 
Something it must be 'twixt you and the woods ; 
These are the colors I've seen the flowers wear, 
Your faces are such as they ought to bear. 
Your voices ring out as blossom-bells should ; — ■ 
Come — which is the blossom? which is the hood? 



214 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



"HOLD OF HANDS." 

Yes, I went to see the pictures ; 

And 'twas good 
In this man of millions, surely. 

That he should 
Let us in for once to wander 

Where we would 
Through his galleries that cover 

Half a rood, 
But I came away with envy, 

And the sigh, 
" Now 'tis over, and tomorrow, 

Passing by. 
All will he again locked wholly 

From my eye. 
All these visions fit for angels, 

All these gleams 
Of a light celestial shining 

But in dreams 
To us poor folk ! — We're defrauded, 

As meseems. 
For his millions give him chances 

That our love 
Of the lovely cannot make us 

Have and prove : 
E'en though there are pictures selling 

On the street 
I cannot afford to buy them ! " — 

Vision sweet 



"hold of hands." 215 

Sudden stayed my murm'ring fancy, 
Stayed my feet. 

Just two children, lifting wistful 

Large clear eyes, 
Down the street they walk together 

And surmise 
None before can have discovered 

In this guise 
Such a place as this great world is 

For surprise. 
The small adventurers this world then 

'Twixt them share, 
And their hands are tightly clasping 

As they fare, 
For they've half a mind to turn back, — 

Half to dare, — 
But the one is of the other 

Taking care. 

Ah ! I brought a picture home then, — 

There it stands ; 
Will you look ? The title's only 

" Hold of Hands." 
Galleries I still may get me, 

Magic wands 
Of millions lacking, — for my eyes 

Their demands 
May as honored be in making. 

Through all lands. 
Here's my picture, not for sale, sir : 

" Hold of Hands." 



2l6 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



MASTS AND SPIRES. 

'Tis the calm before the storm : — • 

Lying dreamily and still 
Slender masts the harbor crowd, 

Where the ships bide safe from ill. 
Far the city sloping down, 

Pressing to the clear-cut rim 
Of the level water, lifts 

Her keen spires, shapely and dim. 

Like a deep, inverted shell, 

Full of mystic, changeful hues. 
Faintest rose and palest amber. 

Cloudy grays, ethereal blues, 
Over harbor, over town, 

Clasps the wide-embracing sky. 
While both masts and sj^ires prick sharp 

Toward that one dome on high. 

O spires that stand so steady. 

Nor ever away remove, 
O masts that seem poised as fast, 

Yet given to shift and rove, 
Both now in the distance blent 

To look so closely akin 
Scarce can the eye note contrast, — 

New solace I read herein ! 

Longings and aspirations 
My life lifts up to heaven : 



CAPRICE. 21/ 

They come and go inconstant, 

Hither and thither driven, 
Still maybe one Eye will mark 

That alongside aims more true 
My frail spars rise as they rise. 

Pointing star-ward as they do. 



CAPRICE. 
I. 
" Come, fading roses, come away, 
For it has wearied me all day 
To see you wither ; must I so 
Learn what I do not want to know — • 
That no immortal flowers are you, 
Veined with imperishable dew, 
But must fade as things human do ? 
And yet, by you there came to me 
Such words as must immortal be." 

II. 

Though by herself, — her fire-lit room, 
As dusk sifts in, half glow, half gloom. 
She blushes when from its high jolace 
Slie lifts the clear-cut crystal vase. 
" Why will you fade, you pretty things ? 
Oh, that your petals each had wings, 
To waft you now, like butterflies. 
Unsullied, back to Paradise ! 



2l8 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

" I will not watch you spoil ; but I 
Am foolish without reason why ; 
I cannot bear to throw you by 
For feet to trample in the mire, 
Nor can I bear the thought of fire." 

III. 

While through her window then she cast 

Her dreaming looks where night dropped fast, 

She noted how the rhythmic snow, 

Like music to the dumb, all slow. 

Timed to a perfect measure fell. 

" These snow-flakes fit my rose-leaves well," 

She smiled, half sighing ; " are they kin ? 

O spirit snow-flakes ! have you been 

Ever so human-proud and fair 

As these buds of my one night's wear, 

And did you take the nun's white veil ? 

Are you content, pure, cold and pale ? 

Here, snow-flakes, — teach them how to die, 

And bear them with you as you fly." 

She dropped her roses with the words ; 
And, like stray flocks of alien birds, 
The startled wing of rose-leaf, wing 
Of snow-flake, brushed by, fluttering. 

IV. 

A motion gliding where they drift; — 
With sudden stealthy steps and swift 



HER PHOTOGRAPH. 2I9 

A. half-clad child springs up, — her shawl, 
Held 'neath her chin, breathless let fall. 
One second's glimpse of the wild zest 
With which she holds the buds carest 
To her dark cheek ; of eyes that lift 
Frightened aloft ; then the flakes drift 
Rhythmic as ever, but alone ; 
Roses and beggar-child are gone. 
She shut the casement, drew the lace, 
And, fingering her empty vase, 
Across her mind let phantoms pass 
Of thoughts, like shadows in a glass. 

" I meant my own caprice ; who knows 
Whose will she does ? it proves that those, 
My roses, other will obeyed 
Than mine ; I wonder where they'll fade ? 
Float, float, soft snow-flakes, all the night, 
Play voiceless music by your flight, 
Keep your perfection cold and white ! 
My roses, human for their part, 
Choose shelter in a living heart. 
There, by a throbbing love kept warm, 
Out of the dark, out of the storm." 



HER PHOTOGRAPH. 

Here is her picture ; see, how true ! 
The dear original we knew 
Has long been gone ; the copy's left. 
It does seem strange that art grown deft 



220 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Enough to pin this shadow here 
And hold it fadeless year on year 
Could let herself, her real self go, 
The warm bright self we wanted so, 
The presence always doing good, 
All ready, strength, cheer, fortitude. 
And strange this bit of paper could 
Get for itself what we fain would 
But have been utterly denied 
Whate'er our longing since she died, 
The trust to hold forever fast 
Something of her on earth would last. 

Ah ! hungry eyes return, return 

To gaze on this. If looks could burn 

The bit of paper long ago 

Had turned to ashes, for below 

The pictured face would eager thought 

Have scorched its way, explored and sought 

To find what stayed when all that made 

The changeful play of light and shade 

On lip and brow had vanished quite 

Beyond pursuit of mortal sight. 

" How like ! " we fondly say, and yet 

Then even cannot quite forget 

To wonder if we wrong thereby 

The being she is now, and try 

To think what fairer shape she wears 

Of loveliness, what features bears ; 



LITTLE WHITE JACKET. 221 

Half-dreading lest in that new place 
No guise familiar we sUall trace. 
But love makes the misgiving fleet, 
And instinct turns its bitter sweet, 
Believing looks so learned in this 
In any world we cannot miss, 
Because He never mocks at us 
Who sets us learning, loving thus 
Each other, while not yet bear we 
The lineaments that ours shall be. 
Unnatural the far-fetched fear ! 
All that thou wert remembered, dear, 
And on our hearts imprinted true 
Will somehow prove our surest clue 
To know thee as thou shalt be, when 
We meet, nor go apart again. 
But, knowing e'en as we are known. 
Find each his place, find each his own. 



LITTLE WHITE JACKET. 

Who'd be a kernel of corn. 

With a head 
So round, so hard and so dull ? 

Kitten said ; 
" It's stupid, empty and dry, 

Old and dead." 

Into the fire-place she tossed 
In her scorn 



222 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Her handful of good-for-naught 

Yellow corn, 
Left-over corn of last year 

Now forlorn. 

Ha ! who is this leaps in air, 

With a quick, 
Short grunt, exclaiming Pop ! pop ! 

And a kick 
So funny that Kitten cries, 

" What a trick ! " 

" My dear little White Jacket ! 

Who are you ? 
What is this most curious 

Thing yovi do ? 
Is it turning inside out. 

Or some new 
Queer fashion of somersault 

You go through ? 

" Were you in the kernel, then ? 

But how, pray, 
Did you ever get out so .-' 

Own the way 
Just to me, cherub pop-corn, — 

I won't say ! " 

Kitten coaxed and she flattered ; 

Not one word 
To this day from White Jacket 



MADELINE JUST NAMED. 223 

Has she heard, 
Though she cracked a grain open, 
This absurd 

Little lass ! — in the fancy 

That maybe 
She'd surprise a White Jacket 

And thus see 
How he lived in the kernel, — 

She told me. 

His secret White Jacket keeps ; 

But she seems 
Expecting it yet, and oft 

Sits in gleams 
Of the fire-popping corn ; while, 

As she deems, 
Troops of cherub White Jackets 

Share her dreams. 



MADELINE JUST NAMED. 

It seems they have named her! 
Henceforth as we christen 
The child, she will listen 
To learn her own title, thus 
Just come to all of us, 
And so begin guessing 
Herself out, — the blessing! 



224 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

But, since they have named her, 
She becomes the more truly 
A real life, launched duly, 
By owners engraven, 
Sent forth to the haven 
Like a precious ship laden 
And sped, bonnie maiden ! 

And, since they have named her, 
'The new word she will bear 
As the title-page fair 
Of some noble book seems. 
Where one pauses and dreams, 
Admiring, with wonder. 
Ere turning leaves under. 



For, now they have named her, 
What will it grow to mean. 
This name Madeline, 
Called familiarly o'er 
Day on day, more and more, 
By mate, mother and friend, 
And maybe in the end 
Lips more passionate still ? 
By and by what will fill 
Full of her, brimful e'en, 
This her name, Madeline ? 
Character fine and fair. 
Fit for a life-time's wear ; 
Gracious in word and way, 



THE COTTAGE PORCH. 22$ 

Thus do we hopeful pray, 
Looking off, years away. 

Then write they have named her, 

Write her down Madeline, 

On the page white and clean, • 

O, Recorder Divine ! 

Of that vast book of thine, 

Where the names Thy dear love 

Doth adopt, stand above ; 

And when the night's falling, 

Send angels out calling 

Now come home, Madeline, 

Madeline ! Madeline ! 



THE COTTAGE PORCH. 

A TURNER, WITH POETIC INTERPRETATIONS. 

I. 

By B. S. p. 

The level beams of sunset 

On field and hill are bright, 
With one low hue of crimson 

To burn against the night. 
Across the meadow it shineth 

On daisy and golden rod. 
Till you fancy that the sun-motes 

Are a ladder of gold to God. 



226 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

A cottage porch whose trellis 

Peeps from close vines between, 
Wliere scarlet-throated trumpets 

Toss 'mid their leaves of green. 
There's an idle wheel beneath them 

And a spinner's empty chair, 
And the pale flax in the sunset 

Gleameth like a maiden's hair. 

And this is all the picture ; 

No beauteous Marguerite 
Is shadowed on the curtain, 

To make it more complete. 
No round-armed spinner, whose bodice 

Revealeth a curved neck white. 
No quiet-faced grandame watcheth — 

There is naught but the wheel in sight. 

Its quiet beauty thrilleth, 

Its peace enfolds and clings, 
Till, like a psalm, it soothes you 

With hush of unseen wings. 
But what is the story hidden 

In the spinner's vacant chair? 
And why does the pale flax glimmer 

Like the gold of a maiden's hair ? 

Had she who spun grown weary 

Of distant fields aglow ? 
And heart-sick from her vigil 

For one who lingered so .'' 



THE COTTAGE PORCH. 22/ 

Did the sunset's scarlet banners 
Thrill her heart with useless pain, 

Till she turned away and left them 
Till they shudder to gray again ? 



By E. B. 

You say you would have me paint her, 

The spinner, whose easy chair 
In the cottage porch stands vacant, 

By the wheel arrested there. 
Yes, I could dream you her story, 

I think, looking long enough 
At your picture of vines and blossoms, 

'Broidered in thick-wrought flufif. 
Over the cottage front ; 'twould be 

Simply natural to me 
If, through that open door, she came 

Stepping out most daintily. 

" Poet, tell me her story." You 

Command me, exacting queen. 
Well, then : Her name is Alicia, 

The Lady Alicia ; her mien 
Is high-bred and haughtily humble ; 

Her face is Spanish and brown, 
Save where quick, red blood leaps over. 

Its duskiness all to drown. 
Every noon here she sits to spin. 

In the ripe of day and year — 



228 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

" Her dress ? " O, duskish, with scarlet 

Ribbons. (You're sheer woman, dear !) 
She sits alone at her spinning, 

And sings so low that wheel, 
And bird, and bee, can deftly 

What a love-song 'tis conceal. 
But the lover her proud kin scorn, 

Of her single heart preferred, 
He, over bee, and bird, and wheel. 

Will lose not a word unheard. 
Wilful, banished, Alicia still 

Will have all things as she list ; 
Pray, can faithfulest dowager 

All sleepy noons resist } 
Dame Margaret cries, indignant, " Sleep ! 

When you know I never sleep !" 
And, at such industry, delights 

The lulling wheel to approve ; 
So she innocent nods, the while 

One under the hedge tells love. 
And hears, for the rhythmed hum more sweet, 

Alicia's fond, low reply. 
Safe-covered 'neath drone of wheel. 



" Then is this the reason why 

The chair is empty, the wheel still, 

The flax untouched .'' is she flown 
At last his bride .'' or heard she 

The dame call ? " Ah ! it has grown 

Dear list'ner, long, long years since then ; 



TITE COTTAGE PORCH. 229 

So you must dream it out as best 

You can, if the lady again 
Comes to her wheel ; — the rest 

May be of love or grief : may be 
How her children after her, 

Learning to use the same wheel, hold 
For her sake honored its whir. 

The spinning-wheel and the pale, pale 
Flax, and the maid's skilled hand ; 

Are all no more now than any 
Scattered dust in the land. 

But I cannot finish the tale ; 

A mist comes over my eyes ; 
A tender pathos, for me, so 

Your picture underlies. 
Ah ! many a time have I seen 

Place and work left like this — 
Fair, well-ordered ; only one thing 

Just the "vanished hand," to miss ! 
Still, with the sense of that presence 

Tingles all hers that you touch. 
But now the familiar spinner 

Will nevermore handle such — 
And you pity the dumb things there, 

Waiting her, uselessly, long ; 
You could wish them all gone with her, 

If such wishing were not wrong. 



230 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THE LOOK OF WONDER. 

She was a woman old and spent, 
And in her lengthened life had blent 
Whatever fills a woman's lot 
Who naught evades, selecting not 
Among life's nearest cares and claims, 
Called by such common, homely names. 

Hard work the willing hands had known, 

That served with tireless toil her own. 

Her life within four walls was bound. 

So rigorous its hourly round ; 

She scrubbed and baked from morn till night, ■ 

The world must manage as it might. 

Children she reared, and lived to see 
Wayward or wise, what they would be ; 
And on the church-yard hill there were 
Graves that besides belonged to her ; 
She labored with a patient heart 
That reasoned little of its part, — 

But simply took what each day brought 
To do her best by, knowing naught 
Of the perplexed, fine wondering 
Which sets minds subtler pondering ; 
She wrought, it seemed, the lesson sent ; 
Left us to find out what it meant. 



THE LOOK OF WONDER. 23 1 

Now she had done. Never before 
She had refused to help, at more 
Thau common need ; but now she kept 
Still, folded hands, smiled on and slept, 
While others scoured and sewed and swept, 
Or quickly at her old tasks stept. 

They looked their last upon her face, 
And marveled as they left the place, 
For on the features that had worn 
So long a look of care, and borne 
Few other marks, was now impressed 
A seal more foreign e'en than rest. 

It had significance of grace. 

That look of wonder on her face, 

As though she caught at last a sight 

Of glory, and a second might 

Have given space to tell us what ; 

— The second could not be, — was not. 

She took the secret with her, yet 
The trace upon her forehead set 
Was like a gesture of the Lord's, 
Conveying meaning without words ; — 
And as they went, women and men, 
Out through the busy world again. 

Plying their own vocations there, 

Each with his hope, his hurt, his care — 



232 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Often would come amidst it all 
That gentle memory's recall, 
The jDerfect quiet of the place, 
The look of wonder on her face. 



FOOTPRINTS. 



I. 

It came across a thousand miles 
When winter snows lay white ; 
I seem to see the track it took 
I bend with eager, tender look 
To trace me out the si^ht. 



The baby's shoe, first worn-out shoe 

Lies here against my cheek ; 
It never walked ; no dusty speck 
Left on the snow and least dark fleck 
The way it came bespake. 

in. 

Still, strewn a trail of footprints long 

They show, this tiny girl's ; — 
First, faint upon far snows, then plain, 
I thread them as I would a chain 
Of graduated pearls. 



BON VOYAGE. 233 



IV. 



And for a treasure guarded choice, 

Most carefully apart, 
I keep the Christmas gift so new, 
The footprints of a little shoe 

That ended in my heart. 



BON VOYAGE. 

M. H. D. 



Speed the good ship, outward going ! 

When she slips o'er horizon's thin rim, 
Out of sight soundlessly blowing, 

As years, vivid once, vanish dim, 
Bon voyage ! 

Hail to the ship ! threading deeper 

Her restless, untracked roads in ocean ! 

As safe Heaven favoring keep her 

As it does the free birds in their motion ; 
Bon voyage ! 

Dear Heart, be the May's kindly sending 
Bonny, bright skies for thy sake ; 

Good spirits, glad omens, attending 
The ship's silver-cut, gleaming wake ! 
Bon voyage / 



!34 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Love with its benison follows, 

Hope shall look after, and yearning 

Tender-eyed Patience the morrows 
Count, till her loved be returning ; 
Bon voyage ! 



E. M. B. 



The influence of her singing is like that of a June 
holy-day — a perpetual breath of clover, and of Sabbath 
hours. One is conscious of — 

" Sweet sounds of breatliing roots, and flap 
Of rustling wings : sweet scents 
Of clover and unnamed perfumes," 

as one reads, or lingers in thought over the pages which 
make us know that — 

" The world is richer that she lived, 
And Heaven that she died." 

Into stranger hearts who knew not the beauty of her 
daily walk on earth, as well as into those familiar, to 
whom her soul sang words as exquisitely blended as are 
those in " The Protest," comes this influence, freighted 
with such sweet and gracious thoughts as lead to a fol- 
lowing of her flight upward to her singing-place among 
the stars. 

A. L. W. 
Chicago, III. 






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